Joybee, What's for Dinner? : Ginger Lime Chia Water

Water sweetened with ginger simple syrup, brightened with a touch of lime juice, and extra nutrition added with chia seeds.

Chia seeds have been a popular health food fad for a while now. It's no wonder why. They are a great source of fiber, protein, omega-3s, and other nutrients and antioxidants while being low in calories. These seeds are tiny and a great way to add health benefits to many recipes. This is one of my favorite ways to add some extra fiber to my diet.

Chia seeds are a great source of fiber, protein, and omega-3s. [Tweet this]

Usually, I add a scoop of chia to about 6-8 ounces of water or coconut water and quickly chug it down after a workout. Other than that, I mostly just drink plain water and try to get my 8 glasses a day (64 ounces or about 2 liters) but, occasionally, I like to have something different. Flavored simple syrups are a great way to flavor water and they are also great in cocktails. You can control the sweetness and the strength of flavor. If I'm going to add sugar to my water, I might as well add some nutrients from chia seeds too. It's so much better than buying and drinking sodas (I don't like carbonation but if you do add flavored simple syrup to soda water).

I try to get my 8 glasses (of water) a day. [Tweet this]

I often have fresh ginger laying around. It's easy and inexpensive to buy here and I often use if for cooking. I had some leftover so I decided to use it for Ginger Simple Syrup. I had about 1/2 a cup of peeled ginger slices that I added to 1 cup of water and 2 cups of sugar. Then heated the mixture until the sugar dissolved, covered it and let the ginger steep in the water until it cooled. This made a very sweet simple syrup with the spicy bite of ginger. Just a little bit of this simple syrup will go a long way. If you want even more ginger flavor with less sweetness use a 1:1 sugar to water ratio (with the same amount of ginger--then you can use more syrup imparting more flavor).

A little bit of Ginger Simple Syrup goes a long way. [Tweet this]

Ginger Lime Chia Water

Ingredients:

12 oz water
*Ginger Simple Syrup to taste
1 Tbsp chia seeds
Lime wedge

Fill a glass with about 12 ounces of cold water. Stir in some ginger simple syrup to your taste. Then pour in up to 1 tablespoon of chia seeds and stir thoroughly. Refrigerate or just let set for about 5-15 minutes to allow the chia seeds to soften. Squeeze in some fresh lime juice before drinking or serving. Stir as you drink to keep the chia seeds afloat. You can add ice if you like I just prefer the temperature of beverages right out of the fridge.

Stir, drink, and enjoy.