Did you get your 8 glasses today? I know, it’s not easy. Aside from being essential to overall good health, proper hydration keeps us feeling alert, gives us glowing skin and helps us avoid headaches. The problem is that plain water tastes like nothing, making it hard to stay motivated to drink glass after glass. Solve that problem by making infused water, which provide an extra boost of nutrients and lots of delicious flavour – all without adding many calories. Making a pitcher of flavoured water is as simple as adding sliced fruit, fresh herbs or warm spices to cold water and letting it steep, so get in the habit of keeping an inviting pitcher of infused water in your fridge to stay hydrated all day!
Infused Water
Time: 5 minutes to assemble, plus time to steep Yield: 1 pitcher
Try these combinations or make up your own!
- Pineapple lime
- Strawberry thyme
- Raspberry lemon
- Mango ginger
- Apple and cinnamon sticks
- Cucumber mint
- Watermelon kiwi
- Blackberry orange
- Cherry lemon
- Grapefruit rosemary
- Peach and orange
INSTRUCTIONS
Wash fruit and herbs thoroughly. Slice fruit and discard any pits, then add your combination of ingredients to the bottom of a pitcher. Using a long-handled wooden spoon, or long muddler, lightly press down on the ingredients to release their flavours. Fill the pitcher with cold water and keep it in the fridge until ready to drink. Flavours will be noticeable right away, but will intensify over a 24 hour period. You can refill your pitcher using the same ingredients once or twice, but beyond that the fruits, herbs and spices will lose their flavours, so it’s best to replace the ingredients after a refill or two.
IDEA NOTES
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- Entertaining tip: Having friends over for drinks? Set out a pretty pitcher of infused water and fresh glasses for your guests to help themselves between cocktails. Everyone will thank you in the morning!
- To take infused water on the go, make it directly in a water bottle designed for infusing, and refill it with fresh water as needed while you’re out and about. This pretty rose gold bottle with insulating sleeve has become one of my favourite things!
- To make infused sparkling water, add your desired fruit, herbs or spices to the bottom of a pitcher and crush as noted in the instructions above. Fill the pitcher with a cup of still water and steep to make an intensely concentrated infusion. When you’re ready to serve, top the pitcher with sparkling water and lightly stir to combine. To make one glass at a time (so the whole pitcher doesn’t go flat before you can drink it all!), add a small amount of the concentrate into an individual glass and top with sparkling water. Repeat as you refill your glass for fresh bubbles everytime!
