The Other Side of the Tortilla
Mexican recipes, culture and travel destinations
This post is in partnership with California Strawberries. The recipe and opinions are my own.
If you love strawberries, but you’re also trying to cut back on added sugar, you’re going to love this recipe for strawberry hibiscus popsicles.
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The mangonada is a quintessential Mexican treat made with mango, orange juice, chamoy and Tajín and it’s a popular snack or dessert with street vendors and neverías (ice cream shops) in Mexico. The sweetness of the mango and orange juice is contrasted by the sourness of the chamoy, and together they make a perfect marriage of what’s known as an “agridulce” (sweet and sour) flavor. Agridulce candies and treats, such as tamarindo con chile, are common and beloved all over the country.
RELATED RECIPE: Mango cantaloupe popsicles with chile powder
Liquid chamoy is available in most Mexican and Latin American markets in the U.S., usually found near the bottled salsas such as Valentina, Cholula and Tapatío. You can pour the chamoy around the rim of each mold to get it to drip down as directed in the recipe below, or you can put the chamoy in a small plastic chef’s squeeze bottle if you want more control.
The real variable in this recipe, though, is how much Tajín you sprinkle on top! The more Tajín you use, the more sour and salty flavor you’ll get. If you haven’t had a mangonada before, I’d recommend that you start with just a pinch of Tajín sprinkled on top in case the salty-sour experience isn’t really your thing.
RELATED RECIPE: Frozen orange slices with Tajín
If you prefer not to use store-bought chamoy, here’s my recipe for homemade chamoy, which is thicker than the store-bought variety and needs to be slightly more liquidy for it to drip down the popsicle molds properly. You can achieve a similar effect by using a spoon to smear the inside of the popsicle mold if you want to make your own chamoy from scratch with my recipe.
I’ve used a Norpro Ice Pop Maker popsicle mold to make these paletas, which makes 10 three-ounce popsicles and holds the sticks perfectly in place while in the freezer. (That’s an affiliate link to my Amazon store, El Mercadito.)
RELATED RECIPE: Street food-style mango cups
Prep
Inactive
Total
Yield 10 3-ounce pops
Make this fun spin on a traditional Mexican mangonada by adapting the recipe for your favorite popsicle mold!
Inactive time listed is for time needed to freeze the popsicles.
Courses Dessert
Cuisine Mexican
RELATED RECIPE: Mango and chamoy popsicles for a Zoku Quick Pop Maker
During the summer, I always want paletas for dessert whenever possible because, well, it’s typically REALLY HOT in the part of Los Angeles where we live. I very rarely buy popsicles in the grocery store because they have a lot of added sugar, and if I’m going to be eating them daily, I need to make healthier choices. Plus, I have a reputation to uphold as the queen of paletas!
Whenever I buy too many bananas (which is basically always) and they start to get spots and are too ripe, I have to get creative with how to use them quickly. So I came up with this frozen treat version of a refrigerated banana chia pudding that I like to make when I’m trying to eat healthier. They’re not overly sweet or too banana-y, they’re very low-fat and not many calories per serving either (for the record, one serving is one popsicle). As you probably know, bananas are packed with potassium and Vitamin C as well as fiber and some other nutrients. Most of the sweetness in this recipe comes from the natural sugar in the bananas. Of course, if you like your popsicles on the sweeter side, you can always add a little extra sugar to the recipe if you want.
RELATED RECIPE: Coconut chia pudding
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Mango and cantaloupe are a great combination not only because they’re both at peak availability during the summer, but also because both fruits are sweet enough when ripe that they don’t need to be sweetened with sugar to make juices or other treats like popsicles.
I really love these popsicles because they’re not syrupy sweet like store-bought popsicles, and the chile powder in the fruit mixture adds just the right amount of heat so that they’re still kid-friendly. Optionally, if you like, you can also sprinkle or dip the popsicles in some more chile powder before eating to add extra spicy flavor. …
Have you ever had a fudgsicle? It’s a chocolate-flavored popsicle, with a pudding-like consistency, and I used to beg my parents to buy them at the grocery store when I was a kid. I developed the recipe for these vegan avocado and cacao paletas with those fudgy popsicles from my childhood in mind. As an adult, I like to give things a healthier spin when I can and since I have a vegan in the family, I wanted to make them in a way that she could enjoy them with me, which meant they couldn’t have any dairy. These are similar to my avocado popsicles, with a few tweaks to make them vegan-friendly. The avocado gives the popsicle a creamy, silky base, and coconut milk mixed in helps the popsicles freeze consistently and stay together when you remove them from the mold.
Paletas made with pineapple, cucumber and lime juice are a refreshing, healthy treat you can enjoy without any guilt! This all-natural, no sugar added popsicle recipe is one of my favorite ways to cool off from the summer heat, without consuming lots of empty calories or sugar. The lime zest gives these paletas a bright zip of color and a citrusy aroma that lime juice alone just can’t provide. I also love how the lime zest sinks to the bottom of the popsicle mold as it freezes, embedded in the pineapple juice and some of the cucumber juice naturally floats to the top of the mold. It makes for a pretty layered look with zero effort for it to turn out that way!
After going 10 days without eating sugar last month, I began thinking a lot about how much added sugar we actually consume in our household. Although we won’t completely cut all added sugar out of our diet, there are definitely some places we can easily cut back to make healthier choices. And although it’s true that pineapple has a moderately high amount of natural sugar, the juice, when cut by cucumber and lime juice and divided into 10 popsicles, still has way less sugar per serving than almost any store-bought popsicle, and absolutely no preservatives, chemicals, sugar substitutes or artificial color dyes.
RELATED RECIPE: Mango cantaloupe paletas with chile powder
If your family consumes a lot of popsicles in the summer like mine does, then you probably already know that making your own ice pops can be both cost effective and healthier. Especially if you’ve got little kids you don’t want eating lots of sugar, this recipe is a great, tasty option. Be sure to cut the skin off the cucumber so that the flavor is mild and blends in well to mellow the sweetness of the pineapple. Leaving the skin on the cucumber often results in a bitter flavor that throws off the balance.
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