These paleo healthy margaritas are made with simple ingredients: lime juice, honey, water, and booze. Sugar free and paleo (I mean… tequila is pretty much paleo, right?), they’re the closest thing to healthy margaritas that exist! Ideal for Cinco de Mayo or any fiesta occasion (slash random weekday), you’ll fall in love with how super quick and easy these healthy margaritas are, too.
Just as a disclaimer… I’m not necessarily saying tequila is healthy. Like, you probably shouldn’t have it for breakfast. But if there were ever to be a healthy margaritas recipe, this is surely it!
There came a point in my pregnancy when my “cute” prego cravings (seasoned fries and dark chocolate sauce, anyone?) gave way to more serious, disconcerting cravings.. or, well, craving, to be specific. The margarita.
Oh, how I longed for one! A stout, salt-rimmed glass, bright from fresh lime juice, laced with good tequila. Anything besides styrofoam cups of deep ruby-red jamaica at the taquerias, really. I’d have settled for a salty chelada, too–a beer “cocktail” I fell in love with a couple trips to Playa del Carmen back. Mexican beer over ice with fresh lime juice, and another salt rim.. Maybe I was just sodium-deficient during pregnancy?
Nah.. pretty sure my kettle chip cravings took care of that.
Anyway, after I cooked Leo up just right and he came out and did his thing, I set my sights on the margarita to end all my cravings once and for all! But, you know, newborns require a lot of attention and all that, so we didn’t exactly make it out for Mexican right away. The first well-deserved margarita I had was weeks and weeks later, made from scratch to go along with some sort of Latin dish, once I passed my all-takeout-all-the-time phase in the early days. And mama mama mama, it was good! But when I decided to give up refined sugar for a while in the new year, I was seriously bummed at the prospect of missing out on my beloved ‘ritas for lack of simple syrup–and I really just can’t do the no-sweetener-at-all kind of margarita that’s reserved for badder asses than myself.
So what’s a girl to do?
Honey, baby! Honey is the answer. I put together a simple recipe that’s based on shot glasses full of each ingredient and used local honey to sweeten. I’m not typically a huge fan of the honey taste so I was thrilled when it just came off as sweeter, perfectly balanced with the tequila. And shaking everything together vigorously with a ton of ice was key to blending in enough of the stuff. I’m even suspending disbelief that tequila can be healthy long enough to call these.. yep.. healthy.
So I served them up, and O fell in love. With the margaritas. I mean, he’s already in love with me, right? Especially after cooking him up a son so perfectly, non? I digress.. he fell in love with the margarita, and this guy is not giving up sugar. He liked them better than any other I’d made, and he even took it upon himself to memorize the recipe and make them regularly. He really doesn’t cook; he doesn’t make cocktails; he doesn’t bake. So imagine just how happy I am to have a margarita-maker on the reg now!
I know it’s still winter.. kinda. Even though it’s been like, I don’t know, 70 degrees here every other day for the last month. But I needed margaritas. I needed them, you guys. And you need them, too, pretty sure. Make these. You’ll love, love, love them. And make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel! I post all sorts of bizarre stuff on there, like limes chasing each other (obvs).
Paleo Healthy Margaritas with Honey
Ingredients
- 1 shot lime juice fresh
- 1-1 1/2 shots tequila
- 1/2 shot triple sec
- 1/2 shot honey
- 2 shots water
- ice
- kosher salt , optional
- lime wedges , optional
Instructions
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If you're rimming your glass with salt, make a small cut down the middle of a lime wedge and stick the wedge on the rim of the glass on this small cut. Rub the wedge around the entire rim and then dip into a shallow bowl filled with kosher salt.
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To make the margarita, combine all shots of liquid in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice and shake very vigorously. Fill your glass with ice and strain into glass. Serve immediately.
Recipe Notes
Recipe adapted from Averie Cooks.
This is now my go-to recipe for margaritas! We love them, and now use this recipe as the new standard to measure against the margaritas we get when we go out. They just don’t compare, most times. Why pay for an premium prices for an inferior drink when you can make better at home? We are spoiled now, for sure!