Healthy lemon rainbow popsicles with colors made naturally with yogurt, berries and a few superfoods. Climb aboard the healthy homemade popsicle train. These popsicle recipes are kid-friendly with all the colors, and an easy way to sneak in healthy fruits and veggies.
Lemon Rainbow Popsicles
Homemade rainbow popsicles easy to make healthy and full of lemony goodness.
The base of most popsicle recipes is really just a yogurt smoothie made lemony and with added fruits to make the colors. And some superfoods.
What Are The Best Popsicles?
Popsicle you make at home of course! I have so many popsicle recipes here, chocolate and fruit and more. This rainbow popsicle is a fun one, delicious and so preetttty! Plus it promotes inclusivity with the rainbow theme and all. In fact these pops and recipe can be uses to start the importance of inclusivity in a conversation with kids!
What Can I Use To Make Rainbow Popsicles?
We used yogurt, berries, melon and superfoods. But you can use your imagination to use what is on hand. I know once I used beet juice to turn my yogurt pink.
And as far as molds, you do not need to buy one. Just use bathroom cups. And straws for sticks. Although I have to say a mold on hand will get a lot of use. And making homemade popsicles is a great warm weather activity with kids.
How Do You Make Popsicles Like Store Bought?
I get that question a lot and the answer is, unless your store-bought pops are not full of sugar and chemicals, you don’t want popsicles like store bought. But if you mean the shape? Buy a mold. I link to one in my ingredients. It is not expensive.
How to Color Healthy Rainbow Popsicles
Picking healthy foods that produce colors is fun and easy. I used berries for purple and pink, mango for yellow, match for green and the blue was special.
I used blue spirulina. Spirulina, either green or blue, is a perfect-protein superfood powder. But it can be pricy so no problem if you want to use blueberries instead.
How to Make Homemade Healthy Rainbow Popsicles
Pretty easy! Create a yogurt base that is not too thick and has lemon. Lemon helps keep the color bright while the rainbow popsicles freeze. The steps are simple:
1. Mix up the lemon yogurt base
2. Divide it into 7 bowls, and mix colors into five of them.
3. Spoon into molds and freeze! Tada!
How Do You Wrap Homemade Popsicles?
I seal them in a storage bin in the freezer, but when we want to transport them to a picnic, say, or a friend’s house, we wrap them in parchment paper. It works well for a few hours!
What are Superfoods?
Well, some people use the term to mean unusual powders or herbs that are high in nutrition but hard to find, and often only purchasable as a powder on Amazon.
Lately however, with the rise of the healthy eating movement, more and more the term “superfoods” is used to indicate a food with high nutritional power, such as cauliflower and leafy greens and ginger.
So you decide how to use the term.
Here, I’ll note the unusual ingredients in my recipe as superfoods and give you swap-out options.
I don’t want you running away just because you don’t want to buy spirulina or baobab.
How Healthy is Spirulina?
Let’s talk about spirulina, one of my favorite protein-rich ingredients in these healthy popsicles.
Spirulina, found online or in Whole Foods as a powder, is a plant-based complete protein source.
It’s high in chlorophyll which balances blood sugar, is high in anti-oxidants, cleanses the blood and protects gut bacteria.
I love spirulina because much of it’s nutrition is hard to get in the Western diet.
As I said, I used blue spirulina to make the blue in this popsicle. But you want to buy a quality brand to avoid any heavy metals, so it can be pricy. So buy it if you intend to add it to smoothies as well and use it up (I take it daily). But if you just want a blue source for this popsicle, use blueberries instead!
How Healthy is Mango?
I probably don’t have to tell you but ordinary fruits also bring this popsicle top nutritional levels.
For instance, mango is high in fiber, vitamins A and C, and folate, B6, iron and a little calcium, zinc and vitamin E. Whew! Mangoes are also a great source of antioxidants.
Tips To Make Healthy Rainbow Popsicles
If you are making this popsicle for adults, add a teaspoon of crushed fresh ginger to the base yogurt mixture. This adds a bright snappy bite and to increase the immunity power. I would leave off the ginger if making it for children however. It might taste too sharp for them.
Be sure to divide the base into 7 bowls. Five are for color and two are for the white to intermingle with the color as you build the popsicles.
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Lemon Rainbow Popsicles
Ingredients
Make White Lemon Yogurt Mixture
- 3 1/2 cups dairy-free yogurt
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- 1 tbsp baobab powder (or add 2 tbsp more of lemon juice instead)
- 1 tbsp white chia seeds
- pinch of salt
- 1 tsp fresh ginger, crushed (add this for popsicles for adults only; leave off for children)
Pink
- 1/2 cup raspberries
- 1/2 cup lemon yogurt mixture
Blue
- 1 tsp blue spirulina (or half cup of blueberries)
- 1/2 cup lemon yogurt mixture
Yellow
- 1/2 cup mango
- 1/2 cup lemon yogurt mixture
Green
- 1/2 tsp matcha powder (or blend with a small handful of baby spinach)
- 1/2 cup lemon yogurt mixture
Purple
- 1/2 cup blackberries
- 1/2 cup lemon yogurt mixture
Useful Equipment
Instructions
Make the Lemon Yogurt Mixture
- If you are making these for adults, peel an inch of fresh ginger, and crush into a pulp with a garlic press. Leave this out if the popsicles are for children.Blend up all yogurt ingredients in a high-speed blender. You want the mixture to be fairly thick so the colors remain separated. Add more yogurt if it is too runny from the lemon juice.
- Once you have a mixture ready, divide it into seven parts. Set two parts aside to remain white.
Mix up the Colors
- Use the remaining five parts to mix up pink, blue, yellow, green and purple colors.
Build the Popsicles
- Pour the first part of white into the popsicle mold, distributing it equally. I filled 6 but some people have gotten 8. Then spoon in colors and white alternating, and finish as you want, with white or colors.
- Freeze 30 minutes and then insert sticks. Freeze another 4 hours or overnight before removing pops from mold.
- We store ours in an airtight container in the freezer. They seem to keep for a long time if the container is airtight.
Nutrition
Dee Dine is founder of Green Smoothie Gourmet, a plant based recipe blog, and author of the recent cookbook, Crazy Healthy with 4 Ingredients . On this blog you’ll find incredibly easy recipes with hidden veggies for anyone wanting to eat healthier, regardless of diet. Dee has graduate degrees in sciences and journalism. More about Dee Dine here.
Jess @choosingchia
I love this idea so much! Such fun and pretty popsicles for summer coming u[!
Debbie
Thank you so much Jess! I can’t wait to see your beautiful popsicles! Dee xx
Izzy Bruning
So pretty!
Izzy | Pinch of delight
Debbie
Beautiful Izzy! Thank you dear, for stopping by! Dee xx