First Watch Blazing Dragon Recipe (Easy Copycat)

The First Watch fall menu is back, and the Blazing Dragon came back with it — the tall pink one with the pile of dragon fruit chunks floating on top.

I’ve already made copycats of the First Watch Morning Meditation juice and the First Watch Kale Tonic, so this one was going to happen eventually.

It turned out to be the easiest of the three by a mile, because once you look closely at how it’s built it stops being a mystery drink and becomes a really good strawberry lemonade with something pretty on top.

That’s the whole trick, and it’s the part most people get wrong when they try to recreate it: the dragon fruit doesn’t go in the blender.

This recipe is inspired by the First Watch Blazing Dragon. It isn’t the restaurant’s proprietary formula and isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by First Watch.

What Is the First Watch Blazing Dragon?

The Blazing Dragon is a seasonal fresh juice on First Watch’s fall menu. Their official menu description is four ingredients long: “Juice with Strawberry, lemon, cane sugar and dragon fruit.”

Worth knowing, since a lot of the pages floating around about this drink get it wrong — the Blazing Dragon isn’t new. It first appeared on the fall menu in August 2024, came back in 2025, and returned again this year when the fall menu launched on August 18.

First Watch’s fall menus typically run about ten weeks, so it should be around through late October.

It sits on the seasonal menu rather than in the regular Juice & Sips lineup, which is where the Kale Tonic, Morning Meditation, and Purple Haze live year-round.

What’s In the First Watch Blazing Dragon?

Four ingredients, listed in First Watch’s own order. Here’s what each one is doing.

Strawberry

Listed first, and it’s the flavor you actually taste. In a drink where the other fruit is dragon fruit — which is famously mild — strawberry is carrying the whole thing.

Lemon

Listed second, and it’s what makes this read as a juice rather than a smoothie. Without real acid, strawberry and sugar would be flat and cloying. The lemon is the spine.

Cane sugar

Listed as an ingredient in its own right, which tells you this is a sweetened drink by design rather than a fruit juice that happens to taste sweet. The nutrition numbers back that up.

Dragon fruit

Mostly here for color and cold texture. Dragon fruit is faintly sweet, somewhere between a pear and a kiwi, and in a glass with strawberry and lemon in it you’re not going to pick it out. What red-flesh dragon fruit does have is unreal magenta color, and that’s the job it’s doing.

One caveat on all of this: a restaurant menu description isn’t a regulated ingredient label the way a packaged food is. The order tells you something about emphasis, but not exact proportions.

How Is the Blazing Dragon Actually Made?

This is the part worth slowing down on, because it’s what separates a good copycat from a muddy pink smoothie.

Look closely at the drink and the liquid is translucent — an orange-to-red juice, not an opaque purée. Sitting on top of the ice is a thick layer of chopped red dragon fruit, still icy, and as the drink sits that color bleeds down through the glass. That’s why it’s darkest at the top and lightest toward the bottom.

So it’s a strawberry lemonade base with icy chunks of dragon fruit spooned over the top. Two components, assembled in the glass, not blended together.

Once you see it that way, it’s a ten-minute drink that needs no special equipment.

Is the First Watch Blazing Dragon Healthy? (Calories And Nutrition)

From First Watch’s published nutrition information:

Two of those numbers shaped my recipe.

The 22 grams of added sugar is about five and a half teaspoons, and it’s most of the sugar in the glass. Subtract it and only about 8 grams are coming from the fruit itself. This is a sweetened lemonade, not a fruit-forward juice, and I stopped being shy with the simple syrup once I did that math.

The zero grams of fiber tells you the strawberry is going in as strained juice rather than blended purée. Blended whole strawberries would put a couple of grams of fiber in the glass. For comparison, the Kale Tonic has 2 g of fiber and zero added sugar, which is what actual juiced produce looks like on a label. The Blazing Dragon has the opposite profile entirely.

As for whether it’s healthy — it’s a sweetened fruit juice, roughly in lemonade territory, and it’s a treat rather than a health drink. That’s fine. It’s a seasonal juice at a brunch restaurant and it’s allowed to be exactly that. The nice thing about making it at home is that the sugar becomes a dial instead of a fixed number.

Ingredients For This Blazing Dragon Copycat

Makes one tall drink, about 16 ounces with ice.

Frozen dragon fruit

This is the ingredient that makes or breaks the drink, and I’d buy it already frozen and diced. A bag of frozen red dragon fruit chunks lives in my freezer through the fall for exactly this — the pieces go on top still partly frozen, which is how the restaurant version reads. Cold, icy chunks, not soft fruit.

Get red-flesh, not white-flesh. White pitaya tastes about the same but it’s beige, and the color is most of the point. Fresh dragon fruit works if your store has a good one — dice it and freeze the pieces for 30 minutes before serving — but it’s expensive and inconsistent, which is why I default to frozen. I go deeper on sourcing in my pineapple dragon fruit lemonade post.

Strawberries

Fresh or frozen both work. Frozen is often the better call in the fall, when fresh strawberries are pale and watery — frozen berries are picked ripe and they’re cheaper in October.

Fresh lemon

Fresh-squeezed only. There are four ingredients in this drink and nowhere for bottled lemon juice to hide — it tastes flat and slightly metallic and it’ll be the first thing you notice. You’ll need about one lemon per glass, and a handheld citrus press gets every bit of it out in about ten seconds without picking seeds out of your drink afterward.

Cane sugar

First Watch specifies cane sugar, so that’s what I use, but use it as simple syrup rather than granulated. Sugar doesn’t dissolve in cold liquid — it settles into a gritty layer at the bottom and the drink ends up less sweet than you meant it to be. Simple syrup is equal parts sugar and water warmed until dissolved, it takes two minutes, and it keeps for a month.

Cold water and ice

Not filler. The nutrition math says this drink is mostly water, and it should be. Skip it and you’ve made a thick strawberry purée instead of a juice.

How To Make the First Watch Blazing Dragon

1. Blend the strawberries with 2 tablespoons of the cold water until completely smooth. A single-serve blender is plenty here — you’re breaking down a cup of berries, not crushing ice.
2. Strain. Pour the purée through a fine mesh strainer, pressing with the back of a spoon, and discard the pulp. You should have about ⅓ cup of strawberry juice.
3. Mix the lemonade. Stir the strawberry juice together with the lemon juice, simple syrup, and remaining cold water. Taste it now, before the ice — this is your one chance to adjust before dilution.
4. Fill a tall glass with ice and pour the lemonade over it.
5. Spoon the frozen dragon fruit over the top. Don’t stir it in. Let it sit and bleed down — that’s the drink.

How To Make the Blazing Dragon Without a Blender

You can, and it’s barely more work.

Mash the strawberries hard in the bottom of a jar with a fork or a muddler until they’re broken down and juicy, then push them through a fine mesh strainer the same way. You’ll lose a little yield compared to blending, so start with an extra handful of berries.

If you have a juicer, run the strawberries through it and skip the blending and straining entirely. That’s the same setup I use for the Kale Tonic.

Tips For the Best Blazing Dragon Copycat

Don’t blend the dragon fruit

I know it’s tempting, and it’s the single most common mistake with this drink. Blending it gives you a flat, opaque magenta smoothie and you lose both the layered look and the cold texture of the fruit. Keep it on top.

Use a tall, narrow glass

The color gradient is the whole visual, and a narrow glass shows more of it while making the color read deeper. I use a tall glass tumbler for these — a short wide glass flattens the layers and you lose the effect entirely.

Build it slightly strong

Ice dilutes fast. What tastes right over fresh ice will taste watery halfway down the glass, so aim a little punchier than you think you want.

Batch the lemonade

Make four servings’ worth of the strawberry lemonade at once and keep it in a pitcher, then top each glass with dragon fruit as you pour. That turns this into a thirty-second drink for the rest of the week.

Blazing Dragon Recipe Variations

Make it lower sugar

Start with 1 tablespoon of simple syrup instead of 2 and work up from there. It won’t match the restaurant version, which is sort of the point of making it yourself.

Make it sparkling

Swap the still water for plain sparkling water. Not a copycat anymore, but genuinely excellent.

Make it with honey or agave

Both dissolve in cold liquid, which saves you the syrup step. Agave is the more neutral of the two — honey brings its own flavor, which competes with the strawberry.

Make it a slush

Blend the finished lemonade with a cup of ice, then spoon the dragon fruit on top as usual. Closer to a frozen lemonade than the original, and very good on a warm October afternoon.

Can You Make the Blazing Dragon Ahead Of Time?

The lemonade base, yes. Keep it in a sealed pitcher in the fridge for up to three days and it holds up well — the lemon dulls slightly after that.

The dragon fruit, no. Add it when you pour. If you let it sit in the drink overnight it bleeds out completely, the fruit goes soft, and you lose both the layers and the texture that make the drink look like the restaurant version.

How Close Is This To the Real First Watch Blazing Dragon?

Close, and I’ll keep working on it while the fall menu is still up.

I don’t have First Watch’s recipe and neither does anyone else outside their kitchen. What I have is their published ingredient list, their published nutrition data, and a good look at how the drink is actually assembled — which is more than most copycats start with.

The thing I’m still dialing in is the sugar. Their panel says 22 grams of added sugar, which works out to close to 3 tablespoons of simple syrup in a glass this size, and that’s sweeter than I’d personally make it. I’ve written the recipe starting at 2 tablespoons so you can taste and climb. If you want to match the restaurant exactly, go to 3.

Common Questions About the First Watch Blazing Dragon

What’s in the First Watch Blazing Dragon? Strawberry, lemon, cane sugar, and dragon fruit, per First Watch’s official menu description. That’s the complete published list — proportions and preparation aren’t disclosed.

How many calories are in the Blazing Dragon? 130 calories, with 35 g carbohydrates, 30 g total sugars, 22 g added sugars, and 0 g fiber.

Is the Blazing Dragon new? No. It debuted on First Watch’s fall menu in August 2024, returned in fall 2025, and came back with the 2026 fall menu on August 18.

How long is the Blazing Dragon available? First Watch’s fall menus typically run about ten weeks and have ended in late October in past years. Check your local menu for this year’s exact date.

Is the Blazing Dragon spicy? No. First Watch’s own description lists only strawberry, lemon, cane sugar, and dragon fruit — no chili, ginger, or pepper anywhere. “Blazing” is about the color, not heat.

Does the dragon fruit actually add flavor? Not much, honestly. It’s a mild fruit — faintly sweet, somewhere between pear and kiwi. Next to strawberry and lemon it’s contributing color and cold texture far more than flavor. That’s not a knock, it’s just what dragon fruit is.

Can I use frozen strawberries? Yes, straight swap. Thaw them slightly so they blend smoothly.

What other First Watch drinks can I make at home? I’ve got copycats for the Morning Meditation juice and the Kale Tonic, both from the year-round menu.

More First Watch Copycats And Juice Recipes To Try

If you’re working through the First Watch menu at home, the Morning Meditation juice and the Kale Tonic are the two year-round juices worth making, and the Pesto Chicken Quinoa Bowl covers the food side.

For more drinks in this vein, my pineapple dragon fruit lemonade is the Chick-fil-A copycat and my other dragon fruit drink, and the strawberry Brazilian lemonade is what to make when you want something creamier. There are plenty more in my juice and smoothie recipes.

Make This Blazing Dragon Before the Fall Menu Ends

Go order the real one before the end of October if you get the chance — it’s genuinely good, and half the fun is the ridiculous pile of dragon fruit on top.

But this version takes about ten minutes, costs a fraction of a restaurant drink, and you can make it in February when the fall menu is long gone and you want something bright pink for no particular reason.

Did you make this Blazing Dragon copycat? Let me know how it turned out — and if you land on a better ratio than mine, I want to hear it.

First Watch Blazing Dragon Copycat

Print Recipe

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A copycat of First Watch’s seasonal Blazing Dragon — a fresh strawberry lemonade topped with icy chunks of red dragon fruit. Ten minutes, no juicer required.

• Author: Stephanie
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Total Time: 10 minutes
• Yield: 1 drink (about 16 oz with ice)
• Category: Drinks
• Method: Blender
• Cuisine: American

Ingredients

• 1 cup strawberries, hulled (about 8 medium; fresh or frozen)
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
• 2 tablespoons simple syrup, plus more to taste
• ¾ cup cold water, divided
• ½ cup frozen red dragon fruit, diced
• Ice, for serving

Instructions

• Add the strawberries and 2 tablespoons of the cold water to a blender. Blend until completely smooth.
• Pour the purée through a fine mesh strainer into a glass or jar, pressing with the back of a spoon. Discard the pulp — you should have about ⅓ cup of strawberry juice.
• Stir in the lemon juice, simple syrup, and remaining cold water. Taste and adjust before adding ice: more syrup if it tastes sharp, more lemon if it tastes flat.
• Fill a tall glass with ice and pour the lemonade over it.
• Spoon the frozen dragon fruit over the top. Don’t stir — let it sit on top and bleed down into the drink.

Notes

• Sweetness. First Watch’s nutrition data lists 22 g added sugar per serving, close to 3 tablespoons of simple syrup. I start at 2 and adjust up — you can always add more.
• Simple syrup. Equal parts cane sugar and water, warmed just until dissolved, then cooled. Keeps a month in the fridge. Use syrup rather than granulated sugar, which won’t dissolve in a cold drink.
• Dragon fruit. Use red-flesh, not white — white pitaya tastes similar but produces a beige drink. Frozen diced is easiest and most consistent. Keep it on top rather than blending it in; that’s what creates the layered look.
• Why strain. First Watch’s panel lists 0 g fiber, which points to strained juice rather than blended purée. Straining is what makes this read as a juice instead of a smoothie.
• Make ahead. Refrigerate the strawberry lemonade in a sealed pitcher for up to 3 days and top with dragon fruit as you pour.
• Lower sugar. Start with 1 tablespoon of simple syrup.