Make Your Own Orange Julius
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Figuring out how to make your own Orange Julius isn’t a new idea. In fact I found today’s recipe in a church cookbook I’ve had for over 20 years!
That’s because the Orange Julius drink has been around for a long time too. Julius Freed opened his shop selling fresh orange juice in Los Angeles in 1926. But it wasn’t until a friend of his who was a chemist came up with an idea a few years later for an orange drink with a creamy frothy texture that things really took off. Sales of the new drink skyrocketed. Customers would come in and say “Give me an Orange, Julius” and the new name for the drink was born. And the rest, as they say, is history.
If you’re not familiar with an Orange Julius, it is indeed a creamy frothy orange drink that has a flavor a lot like an orange creamsicle (one of my favorite flavors!). Its sold by the Dairy Queen/Orange Julius chain often located within shopping malls. When you order one, they mix it up in one of their blenders that go at super-duper high speeds making everything, (here come those same two words again), creamy and frothy.
So what’s the secret to that creaminess and frothiness? It’s a secret but it might have something to do with egg whites. The Top Secret Recipes website has a copycat of an Orange Julius that uses egg whites too, but I opted not to use any eggs whites and just stuck with the recipe I found in my old cookbook that made a delicious whipped orange drink that was creamy and frothy enough for me.
This recipe uses half of a 12 oz can of orange juice concentrate, not thawed. Keeping it in its icy form gives your drink more texture. The recipe also uses a little milk, sugar, and vanilla extract for that creamsicle flavor, and finishes up with some ice cubes to give you still more of that icy smoothie texture.
I also had the fun of making this recipe for a homemade Orange Julius at my daughter’s house and got to use her Ninja Professional Blender
. What a great blender for making smoothies! Making the Orange Julius at her house also meant I got assistance from my grandson, my favorite blog recipe helper.
Lots of taste testing was involved and lots of straws were required. I’m happy to report that your homemade Orange Julius will taste fantastic whether you drink it from a straw that is blue, or orange, or green, or yellow, or pink. The world’s smartest taste tester told me so 🙂
More DIY Drink Ideas:
Homemade Copycat Orange Julius Drink
Equipment:
- Blender (high speed like a Ninja works best)
Ingredients:
- 1 cup frozen orange juice concentrate (do not thaw) see notes
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup ice cubes (about 6 to 8 cubes)
Instructions:
- Place the orange juice concentrate, milk, water, sugar, and vanilla extract into a blender and process until mixed.
- Then add the ice cubes and blend at high speed until the ice is crushed and everything is well mixed together.
Notes:
i actually improvised this last night before finding your site…as i also could not find frozen oj in any supermarket but had ordered a few cans of minutemaid from amazon.com since they were always out of stock on fresh oranges…and i had made a jar of oj using homemade distilled water…so i used about one cup of oj, about 1/2 or 1/3 cup (not sure which) of homemade coconut milk (not from a can), a few pieces of frozen pineapple chunks, and ditto for frozen mango chunks. . .i was out of bananas…using an osterizer blender, i went into orbit…it reminded me of not only the orange julius of my teenage years, but also of Carvel’s orange pineapple ice cream which was my favorite back then when a trip to Carvel was really a treat. Since i no longer eat icecream, this was a double blast from the past. It also cooled me off!!
Your improvising strategy sounds tasty Melody!
My grandmother used to make these for us. Her secret ingredient was coffee creamer! It was spot on!