Homemade electrolyte drink
The one you make when the sports-drink aisle wants €3 for sugar and food colouring.
Sweat takes salt with it. Plain water puts the water back and nothing else, which is why you can drink a litre after a hot afternoon and still feel wrung out and headachy.
This is the cheapest honest version of the drink that costs €3 in a plastic bottle. Three ingredients, two minutes, and — unlike most things on the internet with "electrolyte" in the name — the sodium number is right there for you to check.
It is worth being clear about who this is for: if you have been sweating hard, it helps. If you have been sitting at a desk in an air-conditioned office, you do not need it, and plain water is fine.
How to make it
- Hands on
- 2 min
- Total
- 2 min
- Makes
- 1 serving
- Per glass
- 28 kcal
Ingredients
Method
-
Squeeze
Squeeze half a lemon straight into the glass and fish out the pips.
-
Measure the salt
Add the salt — measure it, do not eyeball it. This is the one ingredient where "a pinch" is the difference between a useful drink and seawater.
-
Sweeten, if you want
Stir in the honey. It is optional for taste, but a little sugar does help your gut absorb the sodium and water faster, which is the whole trick behind commercial rehydration drinks.
-
Top up and stir
Add the cold water and stir until the salt has fully dissolved. Taste it: it should read as faintly savoury, not salty.
Worth knowing
- Use fine salt. Coarse crystals sink and you end up drinking a mouthful of brine at the end.
- Make a litre in the morning during a heatwave and keep it in the fridge — triple everything for a 1 L jug.
- If it tastes unpleasantly salty, you have overdone it. Dilute rather than persevere.
What it actually does for you
- Calories
- 28 kcal
- Sugar
- 6.6 g
- Sodium
- 295 mg
- Potassium
- 32 mg
The sodium here is real and it is the point — 295 mg a glass, which is roughly twice as salty as a commercial sports drink and about right after heavy sweating. The weak spot is potassium: 32 mg is nearly nothing. If you want a balanced drink rather than a salty one, use lite salt or the coconut water version instead.
How this was worked out: 0.75 g of salt is 39.3% sodium by mass → 295 mg. Lemon juice and honey from USDA FoodData Central: 30 ml raw lemon juice ≈ 7 kcal, 0.8 g sugar, 31 mg potassium; 7 g honey ≈ 21 kcal, 5.8 g sugar. Figures are approximate and exclude whatever your tap water contributes.
Variations
- Swap the lemon for lime, or use half of each.
- Use "lite salt" (a potassium chloride blend) for half the salt to fix the potassium gap below.
- Add a pinch of bicarbonate of soda if you are recovering from a stomach bug — that is closer to the WHO oral rehydration formula.
Making it is the easy part
Remembering to drink it is the hard part. Honk watches your webcam with on-device AI and honks until you do, as gently or as loudly as you like.
Meet Honk → join the waitlistQuestions
Is a pinch of salt in water really an electrolyte drink?
Yes, in the sense that matters. "Electrolyte" mostly means sodium, and sodium is what you lose in sweat. A measured 1/8 tsp of salt in a glass of water delivers about 295 mg of it — more than a commercial sports drink, minus the dye. What it does not deliver is much potassium or magnesium, so it is a partial replacement rather than a complete one.
When should you drink this instead of plain water?
After heavy sweating: a long run, manual work in the heat, a sauna, a hot commute. Also when you have been ill and have lost fluid. For a normal day at a desk, plain water is fine and the extra sodium is pointless.
Can you make it without the sugar?
Yes — leave the honey out and it still works, at 7 kcal a glass. The sugar is there partly for taste and partly because glucose helps the gut co-transport sodium and water. Without it the drink is slightly less efficient and considerably less pleasant.
