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Want to learn how to make homemade popsicles (that actually taste good)? This foolproof guide shows you how to make five delicious fruity flavors that are perfect for serving as a healthy summer treat!
save this recipe!Hey friends, Sarah here, author of For The Love Of Popsicles (the most popular popsicle book out there)! After developing over 75 different popsicle recipes for my book right in my home kitchen, I learned a thing or two about making popsicles.
This is my foolproof guide to help you make homemade popsicles with virtually any fruit or juice you have. I’m walking you through five classic flavors (but the possibilities are endless): Strawberry, Carrot Orange, Pineapple Mango, Kiwi, and Blueberry Yogurt.
As with the recipes in For the Love of Popsicles, these are healthier than your average pop, containing down-to-earth ingredients and less sugar (no high-fructose corn syrup here). Let’s get poppin’!
Reader rating
“I didn’t have all the ingredients so I improvised. I learned you can change the ingredients up, add something else, or not add something. Either way they are so good and very easy!” —April
Basic Popsicle Ingredients
It could be my food science background, but I just love a good formula! So I created one to help you make these frozen treats with virtually anything (jump to the recipe card for my five done-for-you flavors!):
- 2 cups of fruit
- 1 cup of fruit juice, milk, or yogurt
- 2 to 4 tablespoons sweetener
How to make popsicles
All of my homemade fruit popsicles follow the same method for making them:
- Blend everything together until smooth.
- Pour into molds, insert sticks, and freeze.
- Remove pops from molds by running the mold under warm water, or by setting it in a sink of warm water for a few seconds.
Sarah’s Popsicle Tips
Popsicles are meant to be fun! Get creative with them and add your favorite fruits and juices! The formula above will help you achieve the right texture and sweetness level for almost any type of popsicle (although I’ll include five different flavor combinations for you below to get you started)!
How to Store Popsicles
Once unmolded, transfer popsicles to a freezer-safe container or zip-top bag rather than leaving them in the mold. Molds aren’t airtight, which means popsicles left in them are prone to freezer burn and can start picking up odors from other foods in your freezer over time.
Stored properly, homemade popsicles keep well in the freezer for up to 2 months.
Strawberry Popsicles
When I think of homemade popsicles, bright red strawberry pops are the first to come to mind!
Optional extras that are fun to add to this flavor include: 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 tsp of fresh lemon zest, or orange juice instead of coconut water! You could also throw in another summer fruit, like peaches, raspberries, or cherries.
Carrot Orange Popsicles
These orange popsicles are a sneaky one! Behind that delicious juicy flavor are a few carrots packing in veggie power! You absolutely do need to add vegetables if it’s not your thing, but I wanted to show you with these just how adaptable this popsicle formula is to whatever you have in your fridge!
Optional extras that go well with this flavor include: 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 tsp of ground cinnamon, or brown sugar instead of honey!
Pineapple Mango Popsicles
These pineapple mango popsicles transport you straight to the tropics!
Optional extras for this flavor include: 2 Tbsp of shredded coconut or coconut milk instead of coconut water!
Kiwi Popsicle
I love the simplicity of a kiwi popsicle! Fruity and fun, they’re a great way to use up kiwis when you accidentally buy too many.
Optional extras that go well with kiwi are: adding some strawberries for a classic strawberry kiwi combo, or orange juice instead of coconut water!
Blueberry Popsicle
Blueberry popsicles (or really any berry) feel like the most quintessential summer popsicle flavor. We’re mixing it with yogurt to give it a creamy flavor, almost like blueberry cheesecake!
Optional extras that are fun to throw into this flavor include: 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 tsp of fresh lemon zest, or blueberry instead of vanilla for even more blueberry flavor!
How to make creamy popsicles
When it comes to creamy popsicles that are also healthy, there are a few popsicle foundations that I always come back to! Whichever you choose, Greek yogurt or coconut milk, you’ll want to sweeten it some (with honey, agave, maple syrup etc), then mix it with your favorite popsicle flavors.
- Whole milk Greek yogurt is great for making homemade popsicles. It has a lower water content than regular yogurt, meaning less water crystals to make your popsicles icy (plus it’s high protein)!
- Full-fat coconut milk from a can is another great basis for making healthy creamy popsicles. The results in a soft, melt-in-your-mouth texture (though it’s higher in fat than Greek yogurt).
GRAB MY COOKBOOK
With 75 healthy, vibrant recipes, this popsicle-pedia is all you need to survive the summer!
How to make hidden veggie popsicles
And the category for “popsicle flavors you didn’t know you needed” goes to…hidden veggie! As a rule of thumb, most things that make a good smoothie also make a great popsicle! Case in point: green smoothie popsicles!
Spinach has a neutral flavor that blends seamlessly into most mixtures, so try adding a handful to your next batch of pops to start off your veggie-filled popsicle journey. Feeling adventurous? You can also try adding avocado, shredded carrots, roasted sweet potato, or roasted beet! (Each of these veggies is featured in a recipe in For the Love of Popsicles!)
Best popsicle molds
It’s important that we’re working with a good popsicle mold! Here are our favorites for making perfect homemade pops:
- Classic Molds: I love the environmentally-friendly silicone molds (which are also easy to unmold).
- Quick Freeze Molds: With quick-freezing technology, these freeze popsicles in minutes (though they make less and have a much higher price point).
- Push Pops: While we like to avoid single-use plastic around here when possible, sometimes you just need a push pop for on-the-go! Great for serving the kids!
No mold?
If you don’t have a popsicle mold, shot glasses, yogurt containers, muffin tins, and ice cube trays work well! If you have trouble getting the sticks to stand upright in these unconventional molds, tightly wrap the top of the mold with aluminum foil (trying to prevent the foil from touching the popsicle mixture). Then just poke your popsicle sticks through the foil and they will stand upright!
The secret to soft pops
It all comes down to the molecular structure of popsicles! Water freezes into ice cubes, which is obviously not an ideal popsicle. But when you start adding things like sugar, fibers from fruit, or fat from coconut milk, the molecules can’t freeze as neatly and the result is a creamier, more bitable popsicle.
sugar-free popsicles
Sugar is an important ingredient in popsicles because it’s the difference between a soft popsicle and an inedible ice cube. With that said, you can make sugar-free popsicles by either using fruit purees (which have natural sugars and fibers to keep your popsicles soft) or by using a full-fat coconut milk or Greek yogurt as a base. These creamy options can be sweetened with sugar-free sweetener without a huge difference in texture. Give these Sugar-Free Strawberry Popsicles a try!
Have more questions about making your own popsicles? Ask them in the comments below! Sarah personally checks and responds to comments daily.
P.S. for another healthy summer treat, try my banana nice cream!
Homemade Popsicle Recipes
Ingredients
Strawberry Popsicles
- 2 cups chopped strawberries
- 1 cup coconut water
- 2 Tbsp honey
Carrot Orange Popsicles
- 1 cup chopped orange flesh
- 1 cup chopped carrots
- 1 cup orange juice
- 2 Tbsp honey
Pineapple Mango Popsicles
- 1 cup chopped pineapple
- 1 cup chopped mango
- 1 cup coconut water
- 2 Tbsp honey
Kiwi Popsicles
- 2 cups chopped kiwi, about 4 kiwis, peeled
- 1 cup coconut water
- 2 to 4 Tbsp sugar
Creamy Blueberry Popsicles
- 2 cups blueberries
- 1 cup full-fat vanilla yogurt
- 2 Tbsps honey
Instructions
- Blend: Choose your desired flavor and add all ingredients to a blender. Blend until smooth.You can also choose to leave the mixture a little chunky if you want your popsicles to have a little fruit texture!
- Freeze: Insert popsicle sticks and freeze until hard, at least 4 hours.
- Unmold: Run the mold under warm water for a few seconds to loosen, then remove pops from the molds.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information calculated by Sarah Bond, degreed nutritionist.
did you make this?Leave a comment below and tag @liveeatlearn on social media! I love seeing what you’ve made!
How do you best store??
In a freezer-safe baggie or container! Enjoy!
Is it possible to use a couple of soaked dates instead of sugar, honey or syrup?
Yes, that would work great. Happy eating!
What’s a good sub for coconut water? Just fruit juice?
Yes! Fruit juice works well.
My first try was with cold-pressed watermelon juice. It ended up being too icy hard and rough and poorly integrated because of its high water content. What makes commercial popsicle products so smooth? Are they made from juice concentrate and is that a good approach?
Thanks for your good work.
Commercial popsicles are frozen using flash freezers. When you freeze something really quickly, the ice crystals don’t have time to create a compact structure, so it ends up being nice and soft. Home freezers don’t reach these temperatures, so unless you add sugar or a creamy ingredient like yogurt or cream, then they will be pretty icy.