What to do with Lots of Lemons

Ahh it’s lemon season right now and our decades old lemon tree (which we didn’t plant, but thanks, prior owners!) has been inundating us with baskets full of lemons every week. But what to do when you get an influx of lemons, and not enough drinks, salads and meals to use them in?

The first year we lived here, we were so overwhelmed with the number of lemons that we gave them away to our neighbours by the bag-full. But slowly season after season, I started figuring out ways so that we could use our lemons up in a way that works with our lifestyle and schedules. I’m not talking about recipes that use lemons (but there are heaps and heaps of those out there!), but more about ways to deal with or ‘process’ lemons quickly and easily so that you can use some now and save some for later.

Here are my top 4 ways to deal with lots of lemons:

1. LEMON ICE-CUBES

This is my all-time favourite and most useful way to process lemons. Simply juice your lemons into a jug and pour them into ice-cube trays. Once they’re frozen, you can transfer them into a box to use for later. I find lemon ice-cubes sooooo useful. They’re great for popping into cold drinks or a jug of water as a refreshing addition, or you can put them into your teas, especially if you want to make honey and lemon water. They also melt really quickly and can be easily mixed into a smashed avocado, or used to create your own salad dressings. Lastly, I also use them for cooking soups, curries and more.

It literally replaces those bottles of lemon juice you buy at the supermarket.

2. FROZEN LEMON SLICES

Frozen lemon slices are a lot easier to do compared to juicing lemons into ice cube trays so I often find myself doing this when I don’t have enough time to juice my lemons and freeze them in cubes. Again, I use these in a similar way to lemon ice cubes - but mainly use these for teas and drinks and save my hard-earned lemon ice cubes more for cooking. When freezing lemon slices, I pop a sheet of baking paper between each layer so they don’t freeze in a big clump. You can also freeze them on a baking tray and then once frozen, pop them into a bag.

3. MAKE LEMONADE

This is the easiest way to get rid of lots of lemons and fresh lemonade tastes AMAZING. Normally if I’ve already frozen my freezer capacity’s worth of lemon slices and lemon ice cubes, I’ll turn the rest of our lemons into a few jars of homemade lemonade. To make lemonade is really easy, just add water and sugar or sweetener to your lemon juice. Of course the perfect lemonade is all about the ratio so you will have to experiment with your own lemons and see how sour/sweet they are to come up with your own combination. For us, we have really, really sweet lemons so I do around 1:10 ratio of lemon juice to water and just 1 tbsp of sugar.

BONUS:

You can also pour your homemade lemonade into icy-pole moulds to create lemonade icy-poles (my absolute FAVE).

4. GIFT THEM

I always grew up in houses with lemon trees we never planted and so didn’t really valued our lemons until I gifted them away and realised how many people love them and don’t have trees! For some reason I just assume every Aussie backyard has a lemon tree but plenty don’t.

Lots of people squeal with delight when I bring them a bag of lemons and many cultures use them regularly in their cooking. And apparently, fresh lemons can be expensive to buy at the supermarket - I never knew as I always had them in my garden. Sharing lemons has always been something we love doing and being able to share them with others, whether it be neighbours, friends or fellow students at my pottery studio or permaculture class has always been one of the best things about having our tree.