copycat Chick-fil-A frosted lemonade

Two Ingredients, One Blender, Zero Drive-Thru Lines: Frosted Lemonade at Home

Name: Copycat Chick-fil-A Frosted Lemonade
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 cup lemonade; 2 cups vanilla ice cream; sliced lemons, for garnish

Lemonade and vanilla ice cream go into the blender and come out as the frostiest, tartest-sweetest treat you've made all summer.

Dowell CooksAugust 7, 20265 min read Print this post

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A frosty glass of blended lemonade, thick enough to need a spoon.

It's not a milkshake and it's not lemonade. It's the best parts of both, in one glass.

Hey friends! If you've ever stood in the Chick-fil-A line purely for the frosted lemonade, I've got great news: you own a blender, which means you already own the machine that makes this. Two ingredients, five minutes, no drive-thru required. This is exactly the kind of recipe I live for around here, quick, a little silly, and genuinely delicious.

Overhead view of Lemonade, Vanilla Ice Cream and Lemon arranged on a table — Lemonade, vanilla ice cream, and a lemon for garnish, laid out and ready to blend.

This is basically dessert in a glass, so I keep what's next to it light. A basket of crispy fries or some salty popcorn chicken is the classic move, since the salt plays so nicely against all that sweet-tart cream. If you want to keep it purely a treat, a couple of lemon cookies on the side never hurt anybody.

What to grab at the store

Grab a bottle of your favorite lemonade and a quart of real vanilla ice cream. You don't need anything fancy. If you want a brighter, less sweet drink, swap in fresh-squeezed lemon juice mixed with a little water instead of bottled lemonade, since store-bought versions can carry a lot of added sugar that stacks right on top of the ice cream's sweetness. For the garnish, pick lemons that feel heavy for their size. Those tend to be juicier and slice up prettier.

How I switch it up

Toss in a handful of frozen strawberries before you blend for a pink, fruitier version that softens the tartness even more. On the flip side, if you love that pucker-your-lips lemon punch, swap in fresh lemon juice for some of the lemonade so nothing dilutes the citrus. Either way, the two-ingredient blender method stays exactly the same.

Smart swaps

Substitutions that still taste like the recipe.

Don't have exactly what's called for? Here's what plays nice instead.

lemon

lime
Shares terpene compounds with lemon
grapefruit↓ sour
Shares terpene compounds with lemon — less sour
lemons
Shares terpene compounds with lemon

vanilla ice cream

vanilla pudding mix↓ fatty
Shares lactone compounds with vanilla ice cream — less fatty
whipped cream↓ sweet
Shares lactone compounds with vanilla ice cream — less sweet
sweetened condensed milk↑ sweet
Shares lactone compounds with vanilla ice cream — more sweet

Common questions

Can I use a different flavor of ice cream?

Vanilla is what keeps this tasting like the original, but a lemon or even strawberry ice cream would push it further into dessert territory. Just know the tartness will shift a bit depending on what you use.

What if my blender doesn't have an ice cream setting?

No problem at all. Fifteen seconds on low followed by thirty seconds on medium gets you the same smooth, thick result.

Can I make this ahead of time?

Not really, and that's kind of the charm of it. It's best blended right before you drink it since it starts melting and separating within minutes.

Is this actually less sweet than the drive-thru version?

It can be, especially if you use fresh lemon juice instead of bottled lemonade. You're in control of the sugar here in a way you're not when someone else makes it for you.

That's the whole recipe, seriously. Two ingredients, one blender, five minutes, and a drink that tastes like summer and a little bit of victory over the drive-thru line. Go make yourself one, and maybe make a second for whoever's hovering around your kitchen hoping for a taste.

The recipe

Copycat Chick-fil-A Frosted Lemonade

Serves 45 minAmerican

The Quarterly

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