Recipe: Cooling Watermelon Cucumber Slush
Essential Takeaways
- Balance your cycle with this delicious drink recipe from Elix TCM Advisor and Chef, Zoey Gong.
- With her background in clinical nutrition, professional kitchen, and TCM, Zoey specializes in mostly plant-based Chinese medicinal cuisine and holistic food therapy.
- Share your creation by tagging us @elixhealing
Photo credit: @zoeyxinyigong
The Benefits, According to TCM
Watermelon is considered sweet and cold (Yin) in TCM and enters the heart, stomach, and bladder meridian pathways. It’s fantastic for reducing summer heat, promoting urination, and quenching thirst. Cucumber is considered sweet and cold in TCM as well. It enters the lung, spleen, and stomach meridians to reduce Heat, quench thirst, promote urination, and detox the body. Lastly, mint is aromatic, cooling, and enters the lung and liver meridians. It can relieve Heat and fever, benefit liver Qi, and lift our mood.
Ingredients (1-2 servings)
- 1.5 cups of chopped watermelon
- 1 cup of chopped cucumber
- 5 pieces of fresh mint + 2 pieces for garnish
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- Squeezes of your tailored Elix formula (or Immunity Duo/Ginger Aide)
- Ice*
*Ice is optional and TCM principles do not recommend making our drinks too icy. For this recipe, we used refrigerated watermelon and cucumber, and it came out great — not too cold, but cooling enough for the summer.
Directions
- In a blender, add watermelon, cucumber, 5 pieces of fresh mint, and lime juice. Blend!
- Taste and adjust flavor.
- Serve! Garnish with mint, fresh flowers, and drizzle with your Elix formula.
To learn more about TCM, read our in-depth series that explores the foundational principles of Chinese Medicine.
This article was reviewed by Zoey Gong.Zoey Gong is a Traditional Chinese Medicine nutritionist, food therapist, and chef. Her recipes have been featured in various publications, including the cover of Food & Wine magazine in the February 2023 issue. She’s the author of The Five Elements Cookbook: A Guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine with Recipes for Everyday Healing, where she guides readers in the basics of TCM through encyclopedic entries on common ingredients and 50 nourishing recipes.