I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but I’m so glad that it’s starting to warm up here in Colorado. At last, we can open up our windows to let the fresh air in. The all too familiar sweatpants are being swapped out with shorts and flip flops. And most importantly it’s finally sensible to make up some refreshing aguas frescas. So I figured what better way to celebrate this change in the seasons than by showing you how to make one of my favorite aguas frescas flavors, strawberry horchata.
If you’ve never heard of it before it’s very similar to the process of making regular horchata. You simply blend up the soaked rice and cinnamon. Next, you add in some evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla extract. And finally, you add some water and ice to dilute and cool down the mixture. The only difference here is you add in some blended strawberries, which in my opinion really takes it to the next level. But don’t take my word for it, try out our recipe for strawberry horchata below and you be the judge.
Tips, Tricks & Suggestions
- If you can add strawberries to horchata is it possible to add other types of fruit? Yes! In fact, some of my other horchata/fruit combinations are cantaloupe and kiwi. So really get experimental with it and let me know what combinations work for you.
- As always you can add a little bit of booze to your strawberry horchata to make a quick and easy cocktail.
- I like to pair this horchata with our recipes for carnitas, pan fried fish tacos, carne asada tacos, and pollo asado tacos.
Strawberry Horchata Recipe
Total time: 15 minutes
Servings: Roughly 2 gallons
Ingredients
1 Cup of white rice
1 Stick of cinnamon
1½ Lbs of strawberries
14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
12 fl oz can of evaporated milk
½ Teaspoon of vanilla extract
Sugar
Water
Red food coloring (optional)
Instructions
- Soak the rice and cinnamon: Get out a bowl or a Tupperware container and add the rice, cinnamon stick, and 2 cups of water to it.
Place this in your fridge and let it soak for at least 4 hours or better yet overnight.
- Blend up the rice & cinnamon: Add the soaked rice & cinnamon along with the 2 cups of water to a blender. Blend it on high until it is completely smooth.
Finally, strain this liquid into a large pitcher and discard the leftover pulp.
- Blend up the strawberries: Add only one pound of the strawberries to a blender along with an additional 2 cups of water. Reserve the remaining ½ pound of strawberries for later. Blend the strawberries until they are completely smooth.
Finally, strain the liquid into the same pitcher that has the rice/cinnamon water and discard the leftover pulp.
- Add the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and vanilla extract to the pitcher and stir everything together.
- Adjust the horchata to your personal taste: At this point, you should have concentrated horchata and need to adjust it by adding in more water, sugar, and red food coloring (optional). Start by adding in one cup of water at a time until the horchata is as thick/thin as you like. I personally use two cups of water. Next, you are going to want to taste the horchata for sweetness. So add in ¼ cup of sugar at a time, mix it in, and taste it until the horchata is a sweet as you like it. I typically end up adding an additional cup of sugar to mine. Finally, you can add in a couple of drops of red food coloring if you want your horchata to have a redder coloration.
- Prepare some glasses for the horchata: Most people at this point will cool down the horchata by adding ice to the pitcher. However, I find that doing so can end up diluting the horchata. Instead, I like to add ice to the glasses that I’ll be serving the horchata in. So fill up some glasses with ice. Next, we want to dice up the ½ pound of strawberries that we reserved earlier and add some to each glass.
Once that’s done we can pour the horchata into the glasses.
- Serve the strawberry horchata and enjoy!
Strawberry Horchata Recipe
Equipment
- blender
Ingredients
- 1 Cup of white rice
- 1 Stick of cinnamon
- 1½ Lbs of strawberries
- 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
- 12 fl oz can of evaporated milk
- ½ Teaspoon of vanilla extract
- Sugar
- Water
- Red food coloring optional
Instructions
- Soak the rice and cinnamon: Get out a bowl or a Tupperware container and add the rice, cinnamon stick, and 2 cups of water to it. Place this in your fridge and let it soak for at least 4 hours or better yet overnight.
- Blend up the rice & cinnamon: Add the soaked rice & cinnamon along with the 2 cups of water to a blender. Blend it on high until it is completely smooth. Finally, strain this liquid into a large pitcher and discard the leftover pulp.
- Blend up the strawberries: Add only one pound of the strawberries to a blender along with an additional 2 cups of water. Reserve the remaining ½ pound of strawberries for later. Blend the strawberries until they are completely smooth. Finally, strain the liquid into the same pitcher that has the rice/cinnamon water and discard the leftover pulp.
- Add the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and vanilla extract to the pitcher and stir everything together.
- Adjust the horchata to your personal taste: At this point, you should have concentrated horchata and need to adjust it by adding in more water, sugar, and red food coloring (optional). Start by adding in one cup of water at a time until the horchata is as thick/thin as you like. I personally use two cups of water. Next, you are going to want to taste the horchata for sweetness. So add in ¼ cup of sugar at a time, mix it in, and taste it until the horchata is a sweet as you like it. I typically end up adding an additional cup of sugar to mine. Finally, you can add in a couple of drops of red food coloring if you want your horchata to have a redder coloration.
- Prepare some glasses for the horchata: Most people at this point will cool down the horchata by adding ice to the pitcher. However, I find that doing so can end up diluting the horchata. Instead, I like to add ice to the glasses that I’ll be serving the horchata in. So fill up some glasses with ice. Next, we want to dice up the ½ pound of strawberries that we reserved earlier and add some to each glass. Once that’s done we can pour the horchata into the glasses.
- Serve the strawberry horchata and enjoy!
Check out some of these other aguas frescas recipes from other blogs
Agua de Jamacia From Simply Recipes
Watermelon Aguas Frescas From Dinner at the Zoo
Cantaloupe Aguas Frescas From Carolines Cooking
Kiwi Aguas Frescas From Averie Cooks
