Mango Dragon fruit Refresher (Starbucks Copycat)
When you need a flavorful drink, try our Mango Dragon Fruit Refresher Recipe. It’s a Starbucks copycat recipe with a twist, and you’ll love it on a hot summer day.
Iced coffee and frappes can be very rich and sweet, this is more of a vibrant fruity flavor with floral overtones. One of the best things about making your own is that you can control the sugar content and find the right sweetness balance for your personal taste.
Refreshers got their name for a reason. This drink is incredibly light and well, refreshing, making it a perfect summertime caffeine choice. Make the recipe right before you head to the pool and keep yourself cool without getting in the water.
Table of Contents
What is Dragon Fruit?
A native of the American continents, dragon fruit is the fruit of several cactus species and is actively grown in central and South America as well as the United States.
A flavorful fruit when picked ripe, dragon fruit can be bland and flavorless if picked early which makes it tricky to purchase and use fresh.
Freeze-dried fruit and freeze-dried fruit powder are both available for this reason. The fruit itself is sweet and crunchy with seeds reminiscent of kiwi and full of essential fatty acids.
The flesh of dragon fruit is often an intense red or purple which gives this drink its beautiful signature color.
Ingredients for the Starbucks Copycat Dragon Fruit Mango Lemonade Refresher
- Lemonade. You can use regular lemonade or use a sugar-free lemonade to control the calorie content. You could also do half sugar-free, half regular. This ingredient gives you an easy way to adjust the sweetness of the drink. One of the things I loved about the original drink is that it’s not too sweet and didn’t taste syrupy like the typical restaurant lemonade or summer drink. Keep it nice and light!
- Welch’s dragon fruit mango juice. Alternatively, just use mango juice as this juice can be tricky to find. The Starbucks version uses a grape juice base instead. I prefer it with the mango juice base.
- Freeze-dried dragon fruit powder. This gives the drink beautiful floral notes to balance the fruity mango flavor. It’s super hard to buy dragon fruit and get it at exactly the ripeness needed for a pureed drink. Un-ripe fruit is very bland. Using the powder will protect the integrity of the flavor. This powder also gives the drink its gorgeous color. There are no added sugar in this powder with only 5 net carbs per serving.
- Dragon Fruit. Cubed dragon fruit adds a beautiful garnish to the drink. Dragon fruit and the freeze-dried powder are both high in anti-oxidants and have nutritional value you won’t find in soda or coffee. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but aren’t you intrigued to try the real fruit?
- Optional. Add Green Coffee Bean Extract if you want your drink caffeinated like the Starbucks original.
How to make the Mango Dragon Fruit Refresher
This drink is super easy to throw together in five minutes and makes three Venti cups which are twenty ounces each.
First, you put all of the ingredients except the cubed dragon fruit into a blender and puree.
Next, you pour the mixture over ice in a prepared cup. You’ll need three large cups to hold 20 ounces of liquid in each plus ice for this recipe or you can serve smaller portions.
Finally, top with the dragon fruit pieces. That’s it! Enjoy your drink and savor how much money and time you’ve saved.
Tips to Make the Best Refresher Possible
Add your ingredients according to your blender instructions. If it doesn’t come with instructions, simply add the liquids first, followed by the dragon fruit powder.
Did you know that the popular pink drink, violet drink, and dragon drinks at Starbucks are just the refreshers with coconut milk added? If you’d like a creamy version you can add 1/4 cup of coconut milk to your mango dragon fruit refresher recipe before blending.
One of the beauties of the original Starbucks Mango Dragon Fruit Refresher is that you get caffeine without coffee or soda.
Although, the original drink is caffeinated with green coffee bean extract. You can purchase this on Amazon and have it on hand when you want caffeine, and leave it out when you need to sleep. That’s the beauty of making it yourself.
Make it a frozen drink by adding the ice to the blender instead of pouring the drink over ice in the cup. This is an easy change that makes it seem like a whole different drink with a new texture and temperature but the same great taste.
Other Drink Recipes for Summer
Virgin Strawberry Daiquiri. A delightful and non-alcoholic version of the traditional summer bar drink.
Peach Lemonade. A tasty upgrade to lemonade with all the flavors of summer in one drink.
Italian Soda. A How-to post with lots of great ideas! Cremosa anyone?
Mango Recipes to Enjoy
Baked Tilapia with Mango Avocado Salsa. Perfect summer flavor for a main dish.
Mango Blueberry Bread. A fun twist on classic quick bread.
Make Your Own Mango Puree. Use this as a base in many different recipes to add delicious mango flavor.
Put your feet up and enjoy this delicious mango dragon fruit refresher beverage.
Mango Dragon Fruit Refresher
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups of lemonade
- 2 cups of Welch’s Dragon fruit Mango juice
- 1 tablespoon of freeze-dried dragon fruit powder
- ½ cup dragon fruit cubed, for garnish
Instructions
- In a blender, mix the juice, lemonade and dragon fruit powder.
- Pour over ice and top with dragon fruit
pieces.
Notes
Nutrition
Disclaimer
Please note that the nutritional information provided are guidelines and may vary based on the brand of products used. For your specific nutritional goals use My Fitness Pal or Verywell Fit recipe calculators. All content within this site is not intended as medical diagnosis or treatment and should not be considered a substitute for professional medical expertise.
