The Unexpected Ingredient for the Ultimate Refreshing Lemonade

I’ll admit it: I don’t like cardamom in most recipes. Growing up in Maharashtra, I found green cardamom everywhere. It flavored desserts like gulab jamun and kheer, and was often tucked into celebratory dishes and festive sweets. It appeared in our masala chai and some meat dishes (though its smoky cousin, black cardamom, usually plays a bolder role in meat dishes). It was always there, yet I kept it at arm’s length. Too many surprise encounters with a whole pod hiding in my food convinced me it wasn’t for me. Bite into a green cardamom pod and the experience is, for me, overwhelmingly perfumed—like someone turned the volume up too high on the floral notes. 

But cardamom used with a bit of care? That’s a different story. I like it in Swedish breads, where it weaves gently through the dough and mellows in the oven. And I also appreciate it in the Indian drinks I grew up with, where it’s steeped and strained, lending its floral scent without leaving sharp corners. This sweet and refreshing cardamom-infused lemonade is a great example of a perfectly balanced recipe where cardamom shines.

Learning to Love Cardamom

In my home state, cardamom-infused drinks are hugely popular. We love our drinks strong, spiced, and restorative: A few of my favorites are mango juice made at the height of summer; masala chaha (known as masala chai across the subcontinent), which contains milk, cinnamon, and cloves; chicory coffee with milk and nutmeg; and cardamom-infused lemonade like the recipe I’m sharing below. This sweet-tart, pleasantly floral lemonade is one of my favorite hot weather beverages. In this Indian lemonade, green cardamom lends a floral aroma and delicate, candy-like flavor. Because it is ground up fine or strained out of a drink after flavoring, I don’t need to worry about biting into those crunchy, bitter pods.

The Secret’s in the Syrup

My Marathi lemonade recipe below captures cardamom’s floral, citrusy elegance without the punch-you-in-the-face intensity. The key lies in how you extract its flavor. To achieve the bold lemon flavor and fresh cardamom notes I wanted in this drink, I borrowed a technique from Serious Eats editorial director Daniel Gritzer’s spicy chile lemonade. Daniel’s trick is starting the recipe with an oleo-saccharum, a syrupy infusion made by macerating citrus peels with sugar. As the sugar sits with the lemon rinds, the sugar draws out essential oils and water, forming a bright, fragrant syrup.

In this version, I crack open cardamom pods and add them to the mix, so their fat- and water-soluble flavors are pulled into the syrup as well. The result is a lemonade concentrate that’s layered, complex, and unmistakably cardamommy—but without the intensity that comes from biting into a pod or overdoing it with ground spice.

Why Salt Belongs in This Sweet Drink

Another secret to enhancing the flavor of the drink is salt. Adding a touch of salt to the sweet, spiced lemonade balances its flavors. I walk my culinary students through this idea all the time. Why does every good chocolate chip cookie recipe include salt? Because salt doesn’t just make things salty—it enhances sweetness, rounds out bitterness, and sharpens flavor overall. A bit of salt in a sweet drink like this doesn’t just add depth—it makes the drink more refreshing and balanced. Plus, a little bit of salt makes this drink particularly refreshing after a workout or sweating over a hot stove. After all, salt is a key electrolyte included in sports drinks, and this lemonade is so much tastier than the average sports drink.

The Make-Ahead Base with Endless Potential

The base can be made ahead and keeps for days in the fridge. You can dilute it with still or sparkling water, serve it over ice, or stir it into cocktails or shandies. And if you’re a cardamom fan, you can double down with a sprinkle of ground cardamom just before serving.

This recipe is a kind of reconciliation. It lets me work with a spice I grew up resisting, and it uses a method that’s both precise and sensory: You crush, you zest, you wait. The syrup perfumes your kitchen. You smell the transformation before you taste it. That’s the kind of cooking I like to share with my students—and with you.

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