The Beginner's Guide to Making Homemade Popsicles (2024)

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by Rachel 1 Comment

Homemade popsicles are the perfect summer treat. Inexpensive, fun to make, sweet, cold, and healthier than a lot of other options {depending on the ingredients you use}, they areevery mama’s dream. Mostafternoons at snack time lately I send my kids to the backyard with a popsicle. Because the frozen treat keeps them cool, they aren’t complaining about playing in the heat, and my kitchen floor avoids a sticky mess. I sure do love popsicles!

This is the first summer I’ve ventured into making our own, and I thought it might be helpful to give other moms wanting to try them a simple starting guide.

The equipment

All you need to get started is a popsicle mold. Walmart carries a super basic one for only 94 cents. That was the mold I initially purchased, but I managed to break it pretty quickly {not the products fault, so much as me not knowing what I was doing, which I’ll explain in a minute}. I’ve since purchased two Ikea molds {blue and green for my son, pink and yellow for the girls} and have been very happy with them!

The reason my Walmart mold broke is because I tried to yank the popsicles straight out of the freezer. It is really important that you run each mold under warm water for a minute before pulling it out of the mold! It slips right out that way, and the Walmart mold would have likely held up better if I’d done that. My Ikea molds won’t release without warm water either, so this is across the board protocol. Which would have been nice to know!

What on earth to fill them with?!

Once you have your molds, its easy to feel lost and wonder what to put in them! For the first week or two, all I did was plain lemonade {which at least makes a delicious stand-by}. Then I started searching Pinterest {of course!}. Many of the recipes on there are far more complicated then I am willing to attempt. My oldest is only 5, and usually she and my 3 year old son like to help me make them. So we need to keep things simple!

Here are3 basic ingredients that open up a host of easy options to you:

• Fruit.Anytime I have a carton of berries, nectarines, or some other summer fruit that is getting a bit too ripe, I can throw it into the blender and guaranteed, my kids are going to love it in popsicle form. This is a great way to use up fruit that otherwise might get pitched! Watermelon, kiwi, and even canned fruit are other possibilities.
• Juice.Orange, apple, lemonade, grape. This is the simplest popsicle you can make, but it’s sure to be a hit. I’ve mixed pureed strawberries with lemonade before, and that was fabulous. Add a little fruit to the juice if you want to get fancy!
• Coconut Milk.This ingredient seems to come up in popsicle recipes I read all the time. My kids loved this coconut blueberry popsicle recipe, and the healthy fudgsicles recipe we want to try also calls for it.

If you’re looking for more simple ideas, I’ve been pinning a ton on my Summer Time board. You’ll also want to check out this list of 6 one ingredient popsicles! Brilliant.

What if a recipe bombs?!

A few times I’ve tried a popsicle recipe and decided I didn’t like it at all. But you know who hasn’t complained even once? My children. I don’t know if it’s because they helped make them, or because it is sweet and cold so they just don’t care… but kids don’t appear to be even a tad bit picky when it comes to popsicles. So when I’m not a fan of a batch, I know that my little human garbage disposals will still be happy to consume them all. And that’s one more reason I love homemade popsicles.

Have you made popsicles before? What recipes does your family love?

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