Recipe
🥤 DRINK
Limonana
A frozen-blended mint lemonade, tart and icy and impossibly green, the sound and taste of a Tel Aviv summer.
Israeli · easy · serves 4
prep 10 min · cook 0 min
~116 cal · 1g protein · 31g carbs · 0g fat · 2g fiber · 27g sugars · 0g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Limonana is Israel's ubiquitous summer drink, a frosty slush of lemon and mint, and its very name is a playful mash-up: limon (lemon) and nana (mint). In a charming quirk of history, the drink and its catchy name were popularised by a 1990s advertising campaign that invented it to show off the reach of bus-side ads, only for the public to start demanding the imaginary drink for real.
Whatever its odd origins, it is now everywhere. Fresh lemon juice and a generous fistful of mint leaves are blended with ice and a little sugar into a bright, pale-green, intensely refreshing slush, tart and cool and fragrant with mint.
Sold at every cafe, kiosk, and market stall through the long, hot Israeli summer, it is the definitive antidote to the heat. Sharp, minty, and icy, limonana is a small, happy accident that became a national favourite.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
4 lemons, juiced
a large handful fresh mint
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups water
4 cups ice
Instructions
1
Dissolve the sugar in the water to make a simple syrup (a quick warm-and-stir is fine), then cool.
2
Combine the lemon juice, syrup, mint, and a generous amount of ice in a blender.
3
Blend until frosty, bright green, and slushy.
4
Pour into glasses and serve immediately with a mint sprig.
Tel Aviv café tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Tel Aviv. Shakshuka is North African, from the Maghreb, and it came to Israel with Libyan and Tunisian Jewish families in the 1950s and 1960s before becoming widely popular only from the 1990s. Hummus and falafel carry the same argument, so what a city can honestly claim is how it eats them, not who first made them.
🗺️
Israel. Israeli food is a young, dynamic melting pot of Jewish diaspora and Middle Eastern traditions, hummus, falafel, shakshuka, and sabich. Fresh salads, olive oil, and market-driven cooking define a vibrant, multicultural table.
🌍
Asia. Fermentation is the thread that runs the whole way across: soy sauce and miso, Korean doenjang and kimchi, Southeast Asian fish sauces, the soured batter behind an idli. Chilli is the newcomer among them, arriving only after 1500 with Portuguese and Spanish traders, which makes the heat in Sichuan, Thai and Korean cooking far younger than the fermenting underneath it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
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Good to know
You’ll need: Blender.
Storing it: Store in an airtight container. Most keep 2 to 3 days at room temperature, and longer refrigerated.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Limonana?
A frozen-blended mint lemonade, tart and icy and impossibly green, the sound and taste of a Tel Aviv summer.
Where does Limonana come from?
Limonana is a Israeli dish from Tel Aviv, Israel.
Can Limonana be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Limonana recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Limonana safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Limonana take to make?
About 10 minutes total (10 minutes prep, 0 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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