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Chia Iced Tea

Yield:

4 × 1¼ cup (300ml) servings [without ice]

Nutrition Preview

30 calories |
1g protein |
1.5g fat |
0.5g net carbs
Chia Iced Tea
A refreshing iced tea with chia seeds, fresh lemon, and your choice of tea and sweetener.

This chia iced tea combines freshly brewed tea, lemon juice, and chia seeds for a refreshing cold drink with a little extra fiber, protein, and plant-based omega-3 fatty acids. My newsfeed seems to be rife with stories of heat waves in parts of the world that are more accustomed to milder summer temperatures. Here in Abu Dhabi, extreme heat is just part of summer, and abundant air conditioning makes it reasonably tolerable, as long as you’re willing to hide indoors for much of the day! Either way, hot days call for cold drinks, so I figured I might as well add a little nutrition to my thirst-quenching efforts.

The recipe is deliberately flexible when it comes to tea. I like using a mixture of black, green, and fruit-flavored tea bags, but you can choose whichever combination sounds good to you. Lemon juice adds a little brightness, while the chia seeds soften and swell in the tea, giving the drink its distinctive texture. Sweeten it as much or as little as you like, or leave the sweetener out altogether. If you’re impatient for your tea to cool, you can also replace some of the cold water with ice. I’ve included the weights in the notes to make that substitution easy. Choose your favorite teas, sweeten to taste, and enjoy liberally! Well, within reason. Chia seeds contain quite a bit of fiber, after all. You don’t want to spend your lovely summer day dashing for the… facilities.

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Servings: 4 Total Time: 2 hrs 15 mins Difficulty: Beginner

Chia Iced Tea

Prep Time 15 mins Cool/Rest Time 2 hrs Total Time 2 hrs 15 mins
Difficulty: Beginner Servings: 4 Calories: 30 Beast Season: Summer Dietary Tags:

Description

Refreshing iced tea with chia seeds and fresh lemon juice for a lightly tangy drink with a little extra nutrition and texture. Mix and match your favorite teas, adjust the sweetness to taste, and serve over plenty of ice.   Yield: 4 servings of about 1¼ cups (300ml) each (without ice) Prep Time: 15 minutes | Rest Time: about 2 hours Storage: refrigerated for up to 3 days.

Ingredients

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Instructions

  1. Boil half of the water (2½ cups | 600ml).
  2. Steep the teabags in the boiled water for 10-15 minutes. This can be done in a pot or a heat-safe pitcher.
  3. Remove the teabags and gently squeeze the water/flavor out, back into the tea.
  4. Whisk in the sweetener to taste, until fully dissolved.
  5. Whisk in the chia seeds. Because the water will still be hot, they should plump up quickly. To prevent clumping, whisk for 1-2 minutes, or until the seeds have gelled somewhat.
  6. Add the cold water and the lemon juice. Mix.

    If you want to cool the tea down faster, you could replace some of the cold water with ice. The best way to know how much ice to use instead is by weight, ml = g. So if you want to replace half of the cold water with ice, use 300g ice. In my experience, this would be about 2 cups of ice cubes.
  7. Put in the refrigerator to chill fully.
  8. When ready to serve, whisk to suspend the chia seeds and break up any clumps, and pour over ice.
  9. Enjoy with a straw to best reach the seeds, which will settle at the bottom.

Used to Make This Recipe

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Nutrition Facts

Servings 4

Serving Size about 1¼ cup (300ml) each (without ice)


Amount Per Serving
Calories 30kcal
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 1.5g3%
Total Carbohydrate 8.5g3%
Dietary Fiber 2g8%
Protein 1g2%

Allulose 6g
Net Carbs 0.5g

* Total Carbs - (Fiber + Allulose + Sugar Alcohols) = Net Carbs

Keywords: chia iced tea, chia seed iced tea, chia tea, iced tea with chia seeds, chia seed drink, chia lemon tea, lemon chia drink, low carb iced tea, keto iced tea, chia summer drink, chia seed beverage, chia drink recipe, sugar free iced tea, refreshing summer drink
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Frequently Asked Questions

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What do you mean by sweetener of choice? What sweeteners are keto-friendly?

I'm referring to your preferred net carb-free sweetener. My first choice of sweetener is granulated allulose because it is the most similar in taste and behavior to sugar. But allulose isn't available everywhere. Other granulated options are erythritol, an erythritol blend, or xylitol. Pure low-bulk/highly-concentrated options are pure monk fruit or pure stevia. For these, you will have to look at your packaging and adjust the quantity needed for the recipe. For simplicity, you can assume that the amount of allulose I've listed is equivalent to sugar. Sucralose or another artificial sweetener is also an option.

What data is used to calculate the calories and macros?

When available, I typically use NCCDB data in Cronometer to calculate calories and macros. There are a few items that I choose to use label or custom data for instead, despite the availability of NCCDB data. This is usually because I've found that the label data differs substantially and consistently for these foods. In this recipe, I have used label/custom data for the chia seeds (Bob's Red Mill). Teabags should not make any significant calorie or macro contribution and are not included in the calculation. Be aware that both NCCDB and label data change over time and so what I've given here may have changed since the recipe was first published.

The calorie and macro numbers on your recipes seem oddly uniform. Why is that?

Counting calories and macros can negatively affect mental health by being time-consuming and by creating an obsession with inconsequential levels of detail. In an effort to mitigate this, numbers are rounded. In most cases, numbers equal to or greater than 10g are rounded to the nearest whole number (e.g. 10g, 11g, 12g, etc.) and numbers below 10g are rounded to the nearest 0.5g (0.5g, 1g, 1.5g ... 9g, 9.5g). Any numbers below 0.5g are given as is (e.g. 0.1g, 0.2g, etc.). Calories are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5.

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Nutrition

Servings: 4
Serving Size: about 1¼ cups (300ml) [without ice]
Calories 30
Protein 1g
Fat 1.5g
Total Carbs 8.5g
Fiber 2g
Allulose 6g
Net Carbs 0.5g

Total Carbs – (Fiber + Allulose + Sugar Alcohols) = Net Carbs

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Please bear with me while I continue to transfer content from my previous site, redirect links, revise formatting, and add all the data needed for the new site’s fancy features to function at their full capacity.

What happened?

On July 4th, Weebly (my hosting platform) informed me that it was removing its services in my region and that my website would be unpublished as of September 27th. Fortunately, I had already been working on this new site and could have it finished by then. However, on July 15th, Weebly cancelled my subscription and notified me that my website would be unpublished imminently. Thus, here you are, on my unfinished new site. My apologies.