3 Instant At Home Iced Coffee Recipes You Need To Try!

I don’t know about you, but iced coffee in the summer is a life saver for me. It’s the perfect cold drink to cool down and energize you on hot summer days.

Making an iced coffee doesn’t have to be complicated either.

Here are my top three simple, and instant, at home iced coffee recipes! You don’t need any special gadgets or have to wait too long, like when making cold brew coffee.

Psst! This blog post contains affiliate links in it which sends me a bit of extra money if you use them… at no extra cost to you!

3 At Home Iced Coffee Recipes

Here are three easy iced coffee recipes based on what you already use at home to make coffee.

Whether you’re using a French press, Chemex (or pour-over coffee), or pod/ espresso coffee brewing method – I have you covered!

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1. French Press Coffee On Ice – Easy Iced Coffee Recipes

Making iced coffee in the French Press is as easy as just making hot coffee in the French press.

An iced coffee in the French press is made in the exact same way make hot coffee in the French press.

The only difference is the amount of everything you need, changes. And you’ll also need ice (if that wasn’t already obvious!).

To make instant iced coffee in the French press, you’ll need to double the amount of coffee and halve the amount of water (you’ll be adding the other half in ice cubes).

Simply add coffee grinds to a French press, add water, and let it brew for 4 minutes. You don’t even have to cover it, you want the coffee to cool down!

While you’re waiting for your coffee to brew, fill your cup with ice.

Once the timer is done, press down your coffee and pour it over the ice cubes in your glass. Your double strength coffee will be watered down and chill immediately!

Add milk and sugar as you normally would.

Don’t have a French press but want to try this Iced coffee recipe? I use a 1 Litre Bodum Copper French press, see it on Amazon.

How To Make Cold Coffee At Home With A French Press

Makes 2 cups of coffee

4 tbsp ground coffee beans
1 cups hot water (205 °F)
1 cups ice

Grind coffee beans, add them to French press
Once water is boiled, add to the French press
Set a 4 minute timer
Add 1 cup ice cubes to a cup
After 4 minutes, press down the coffee and pour over ice cubes.

2. Pour Over Methods For Instant Iced Coffee

This is the most versatile at home iced coffee recipe. You can use any pour over, filter immersion brewing method you have at home.

I used a Chemex, but you can also use a Hario V60, a drip coffee machine, or even a CLEVER Dripper.

You need to double the coffee grinds and halve the amount of water you would use to make hot coffee. The rest of the water will come from the ice cubes.

First, add ice cubes to your carafe (for example, at the bottom of your Chemex, coffee pot for a drip coffee machine, or a sharing cup if you’re using a CLEVER Dripper or V60). The idea is

So next you’ll add your coffee grinds and water as you normally would for hot coffee. The only difference is that when the coffee drips down, it’s slowly melting the ice resulting in cold coffee.

Don’t have a pour over or drip coffee machine but want to try this iced coffee recipe? I use either a Bodum Chemex, see it on Amazon. I’ve recently switched to the CLEVER dripper for even simple and more consistent coffee, see it on Amazon!

How To Make Pour Coffee Iced Coffee

Makes 2 cups of coffee

4 tbsp ground coffee beans
1 cups hot water (205 °F))
1 cups ice

Add ice cubes to carafe
Grind coffee beans, add them to filter
Once water is boiled, pour into filter
Continue to slowly pour over water into coffee grinds until the water is done.

3. Shaken Espresso – Instant Iced Coffee!

Now for the real fun at home iced coffee recipe!

This instant iced coffee recipe is ideal if you have an espresso machine or use a pod coffee machine, like Nespresso.

You will need a few extra things for this easy iced coffee recipe to shake it up… literally!

Related

How To Make Iced Tea At Home: 5 Easy Ways

This recipe actually doesn’t work without sugar. So even if you don’t drink coffee with sugar, like me, you’ll need to add some sort of sweetener for this recipe to work. You can use regular sugar, but I also used maple syrup instead and it worked just as well.

You’ll also need a cocktail shaker, like this one on Amazon).

Once you’ve made your espresso as you normally would for hot coffee, add it to a cocktail shaker along with ice and sugar.

Get ready to shake it up for about 30 seconds – until the ice cubes are completely gone!

You’ll end up with the most foamy refreshing coffee cocktail without any alcohol added!

How To Make Shaken Espresso Instant Iced Coffee

Makes 1 cup of coffee

1 shot espresso
1 cup ice
1 tsp sugar (I used maple syrup)
cocktail shaker (Amazon US | Amazon CA)

Make 1 cup espresso / Nespresso
Add espresso, ice, 1 tsp sugar to a cocktail shaker
Shake for about 30 seconds until the ice cubes are mostly gone
Pour out into cup and enjoy!

P.S. What’s The Difference Between Iced Coffee & Cold Brew

Cold brew coffee is iced coffee but iced coffee isn’t necessarily cold brew!

The main difference is that an iced coffee still uses hot water to brew the coffee, and then quickly cooled down using ice cubes.

Cold brew coffee is a slow process that extracts the flavours from coffee grounds over time. Cold brew coffee typically takes anywhere from 12 to 24 hours.

Cold brew coffee will be the better coffee having a smoother, and less bitter taste than iced coffee. Because it doesn’t use any hot water, there’s no chance of burning the beans. Also, the slow extraction just results in a smoother taste – it’s harder to over extract.

Of course, we don’t always have 12 hours to wait for our precious coffee. So that’s where my easy iced coffee recipes come in handy!

P.S. If you do have 12 hours though, it’s worth the wait… see my at home cold brew coffee recipe….

Best Iced Coffee Recipe Tips

The process of making instant iced coffee at home is pretty similar to making hot coffee, despite a few variations. With that in mind, there are a few things to be aware of for iced coffee recipes at home…

Related

How To Cold Brew Coffee At Home (In A French Press)

Be Prepared To Use A LOT More Coffee Than You’re Used To

The trend for iced coffee is to use a higher coffee to water ratio. This is to maintain the same strength of the coffee with less water.

You want to use less hot water because you’ll be adding ice to cool down the coffee. If you use too much hot water, and then add in more ice to counteract it, you’ll most likely end up with really watered down coffee.

So! In order to make sure you’re still getting the same strength iced coffee as when you brew it hot, you need to use more coffee and swap some water for ice cubes. This way, it will be less watered down.

Optional: Make Coffee Ice Cubes For Instant Iced Coffee At Home

One way to avoid having watered down iced coffee at home is actually use ice cubes made from coffee. This is really simple, but obviously does need some advanced planning and waiting.

Make coffee as you would normally and simply fill up an ice cubes tray.

One thing to keep in mind is that it will stain your ice cube tray. So you may want to think about having a dedicated coffee ice cube tray (Psst! get a new one one on Amazon).

I got 22 ice cubes from making 4 cups of coffee. You can get into the habit of doing this once per week so you always have coffee ice cubes ready on hand when you need them!