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5 Minute Slushy Drink
April 23, 2018 By Emma Vanstone 7 Comments
The recent mini heatwave in the UK meant we needed some serious help cooling down, so we had another go at making homemade slushy drinks !
To make a slushy drink, you need to partially freeze a delicious fruity liquid. This can be fruit juice, smoothie, flavoured milk or anything else you enjoy the taste of.
What is freezing?
Freezing is the process in which a liquid turns into a solid when its temperature drops below its freezing point.
What is melting?
Melting is the point at which a solid turns into a liquid.
Is freezing and melting point the same?
Apart from a few exceptions, the freezing and melting point of a liquid are usually the same temperature.
There are several ways to make a homemade slushy drink . You can freeze a ready-made smoothie in an ice cube tray and then experiment with how to make the cubes melt enough to drink or use salt and ice to freeze your slushy. The ice and salt method is the fastest!
Make a 5-minute slushy drink with ice and salt
What you’ll need.
Two plastic sandwich bags – these must seal securely
Smoothie or fruit juice
Kitchen towel
How to make a homemade slushy drink
Pour some smoothie or juice into one of the plastic sandwich bags and tightly seal the bag.
Add a good amount of ice and salt to the second sandwich bag. Place the smoothie bag inside this one and give it a good roll around. If it gets too cold to hold, cover it with a towel, but keep rolling the bags so the smoothie bag is mixed into the ice and salt mixture.
You should find that after a few minutes, your liquid smoothie turns into slush!
Make sure the smoothie bag doesn’t split, as the salt will spoil your lovely slush drink!
Why does salt and ice freeze a liquid?
When salt is mixed with ice, it makes the ice melt as it lowers the freezing point of the ice. This is known as freezing point depression . The more salt you add, the lower the freezing point ( up to a point, it won’t keep going down forever). For the ice to melt, heat must be absorbed from the surroundings ( in this case, the smoothie mixture ), causing the smoothie to freeze.
Make a slushy drink with ice cubes
If you choose to make a slushy drink with ice cubes, you can also turn it into a simple investigation.
- Set up two or three glasses with the same number of ice cubes and place them in different places to see which melts first, or do the opposite and try to stop the smoothie cubes from melting by covering them with foil and/or bubble wrap.
- Investigate to see which colours you can make with the different juices
Let the juice cubes melt a little bit before removing them from the ice cube tray. They will feel sticky to start with. This is because the ice is so cold it freezes the moisture in your fingers.
Why does ice take up more space than water?
Did you notice that the frozen juice took up more space in the ice cube tray than the liquid juice? This is because as water molecules freeze, they link together, forming a structure with big holes. The gaps in the frozen water mean it takes up more space than when it was a liquid.
We call the temperature at which water changes from a liquid to a solid it’s freezing or melting point . The two are usually the same, but liquids can be cooled below their freezing point. We can cool water or a drink using a mixture of salt and ice, which brings me to the next slushy-making method.
Reading confetti has another fun twist on this method, and made slushy drinks using a salty ice core. I really want to try this.
You can also use this method to make ice cream and cool a drink down very quickly !
Science concepts
- Changes of state
Science at home
School science club
Just for fun
If you enjoyed our homemade slushy drinks you’ll love my book full of edible science experiments !
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Last Updated on July 8, 2023 by Emma Vanstone
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Science Sparks ( Wild Sparks Enterprises Ltd ) are not liable for the actions of activity of any person who uses the information in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources. Science Sparks assume no liability with regard to injuries or damage to property that may occur as a result of using the information and carrying out the practical activities contained in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources.
These activities are designed to be carried out by children working with a parent, guardian or other appropriate adult. The adult involved is fully responsible for ensuring that the activities are carried out safely.
Reader Interactions
August 02, 2013 at 12:51 pm
Thanks so much for the feature! My kids and I love this series!
August 03, 2013 at 8:18 am
So glad you are liking it Lorie, and thanks for the great posts. x
August 12, 2013 at 10:54 am
I love your ideas – my children are very interested in ice-cubes currently too.
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DIY Slushie – Melting Point
In How to Make Ice Cream in a Bag follow step-by-step directions at home for making your own ice cream. Find out the science behind how this works. Smart as well as delicious! Watch a demonstration of how this works in the video below. With a few simple ingredients you can be eating a DIY slushie cold treat in no time! Even on a very hot day!
A little bit simpler science recipe you can try is making a DIY slushie from your favorite drink. The same science principles apply! Your favorite drink is pretty good with ice floating in it. When your drink has ice cubes in it, the ice cubes make the drink colder, but the ice cubes don’t make the drink itself freeze. The ice cubes IN the drink melt because they are colder then the drink itself. The drink melts the ice cubes by lowering their temperature. If you want a slushie you need to put ice AROUND your drink instead of IN it.
Melting point is the temperature at which a solid will melt. For ice this temperature is 32 degrees. If you put a drink in the freezer, where the temperature is 32 degrees or colder, the drink itself will freeze. Solid. You won’t be able to drink it!
To make your DIY slushie you want the temperature around your favorite drink to be lower than 32 degrees so the drink itself will get really cold. Keep an eye on it and stir it a lot so it doesn’t freeze solid. Make an easy slushie using ice cubes and salt. Note: the salt does NOT go IN your drink!
Salt lowers the melting point of water. Adding salt to ice cubes makes them stay frozen longer. If ice with salt added to it is packed around a liquid, like your drink, the salted ice will make your drink so cold that it will turn into a slushie!\
What You Need:
- Your Favorite Drink (Soda, orange juice, lemonade, etc.)
- Quart-size zip-lock bag
- Gallon-size zip-lock bag
- 1/4 cup salt
Fill the quart size bag with your favorite drink and zip it closed. HINT: Make sure the bag is zipped really good or your slushie will taste bad when some of the salt leaks into your bag. Put the quart size bag inside the gallon bag. Add the ice and salt to the gallon bag. Next, zip the gallon size bag closed. Finally, shake the bag a lot – even play catch with it…gently. In about 15 minutes you will feel the ingredients in the quart size bag starting to firm up. What started out as a liquid is changing to a solid. When it feels done take the quart size bag out of the gallon size bag. Rinse it off good in clean water. Then open the bag, squeeze the slushie into a glass and enjoy!
When you add salt to the ice cubes you lower the melting point of the ice cubes by several degrees. The ice cubes stay colder, longer – long enough to turn your drink slushie. The secret is the catalyst – the salt. A catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a reaction.
Science Experiment Idea
Make 3 different quart size bags each filled with the exact same amount of your favorite drink. Fill each of three gallon size bag with the exact same number of ice cubes. Add 1/8 cup of salt to the first gallon size bag and label it with a sharpie, “1/8”. Then add 1/4 cup of salt to the second gallon size bag and label it “1/4”. Finally, add 1/3 cup of salt to the third gallon size bag and label it “1/3”. Have a couple friends help you shake and smoosh the bags to make the slushies. Time how long it takes each of the bags to turn into a slushie. Which amount of salt makes a DIY slushie the fastest?
Websites, Activities & Printables:
- PBS Kids: Fetch Ice Cream Shake
- BBC Bitesize: What are freezing and melting?
- Chem4Kids: Changing States of Matter
- Lunar and Planetary Institute: Melting Point
- High Touch High Tech Slushie Science
- Steve Spangler Science: Instant Freeze Water
- National Geographic Kids: Make Ice Cream
You can also ask a math and science expert for homework help by calling the Ask Rose Homework Hotline . They provide FREE math and science homework help to Indiana students in grades 6-12.
e-Books & Audiobooks
Use your indyPL Library Card to check out kitchen science books at any of our locations , or check out kitchen science e-books and audiobooks from OverDrive Kids right to your device! If you have never used OverDrive before, you can learn how to use e-books and alearn how to use audiobooks .
Need more help? Ask a Library staff member at any of our locations or call, text or email Ask-a-Librarian . The Tinker Station helpline at (317) 275-4500 is also available. It is staffed by device experts who can answer questions about how to read, watch and listen on a PC, tablet or phone.
Ice Cream and Other Edible Science for Kids
Let your kitchen become a science lab and bake, melt, freeze, or boil an experiment you can eat!
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