Making rainbow jelly boba topping at home is tastier and healthier than buying from the shop. Our rainbow jelly recipe uses coconut milk and agar agar powder to make a lightly sweetened boba topping with a bouncy chew.
Typically, rainbow jelly is a bubble tea topping made from liquid flavouring and a gelatinising agent such as coconut or fruit juices with agar agar powder or gelatin. It's called rainbow jelly because it usually consists of a mixture of three colours: red, yellow, and white, making it one of the most colourful boba toppings. The taste depends on the juice or liquid flavouring you make it with.
For our rainbow jelly recipe, we'll be using agar agar powder as the gelatinising agent, which is vegan-friendly. We will use coconut milk for the colour and flavour of the white jelly. Meanwhile, for the red jelly, we will use a strawberry-flavoured drink. Finally, we will use an orange-flavoured drink for the yellow or sometimes orange jelly.
We've had our fair share of trial and error in making the three different colours in this bubble tea topping. So, we'll share the best way to make our recipe at home and how to change the sweetness or texture.
Rainbow Jelly Boba Ingredients
You'll need only a few simple ingredients for our rainbow bubble tea topping recipe.
- Agar agar powder
- Preferred juice or flavoured drink (we will use coconut milk, strawberry drink and orange drink)
- Cold water
- Sweetener (optional)
Agar Agar powder
Even though the word jelly is used, our recipe doesn't use gelatin. Therefore, our recipe is 100% vegan-friendly. You can use gelatin instead but this will give you a softer texture rather than a bouncy more brittle chew like we’re used to from the boba shops.
Juice or Flavoured Drink
For our rainbow jelly boba recipe, we’re using coconut milk, strawberry, and orange-flavoured drinks. Instead of a flavoured drink, you can use fruit juice or filtered fruit puree. However, the results won't come out as translucent as ours.
If you use fruit juice, you'll have a more opaque-looking jelly.
Sweetener
For the sweetener, you can use honey. Our rainbow jelly boba recipe should have a sweet enough taste without the honey. So, we suggest only using a small amount of honey if you want to reduce your calorie count or minimise your sugar intake. Alternatively, you can add more fruit juice if you want a healthy sugar alternative. Typically, we avoid adding more sugar as the juices and flavoured drinks are already sweet.
Additional food colouring
We don’t use food colouring in our recipe. However you can add 1-2 drops if you want a stronger colour or vary the colour combinations. Artificial food colouring may be a good option for some people, though natural options work well to avoid chemicals.
For example, grinding spinach into a liquid can create a natural green food dye you can use in your boba. Our grass jelly and crystal jelly recipes uses natural food colouring to vary the colours.
Note that this method may affect the taste, so use tastes that naturally go well together. For example, coffee jelly works well with chocolate as a natural food dye.
Rainbow Jelly Boba Recipe
Ingredients
For the white coconut jelly
- ½ tablespoon agar-agar powder
- 125 ml coconut milk
- 125 ml cold water
- 1 tablespoon simple syrup or honey, optional
For the red strawberry jelly
- ½ tablespoon agar-agar powder
- 125 ml strawberry flavoured drink or fruit puree
- 125 ml cold water
- ½ tablespoon simple syrup or honey, optional
For the orange or mango jelly
- ½ tablespoon agar-agar powder
- 125 ml orange juice or mango juice
- 125 ml cold water
- ½ tablespoon simple syrup
Cooking Instructions
- Pour coconut milk and cold water into a pot and mix well.
- Add the agar-agar powder and whisk until dissolved.
- Turn on the heat to medium heat and bring the mixture to a boil. Continuously stir the mixture while heating to ensure it is even heating. Once the mixture boils, reduce the heat slightly and allow it to simmer for 1-2 minutes.
- Then, remove the mixture from the stove and pour it into a heat-resistant container through a sieve to filter out any agar clumps that may have formed. Allow it to cool at room temperature for 15 minutes.
- Close the lid to the container and cool it further in the fridge. Allow it to cool and set for at least 1 hour. For the best results, keep them in the fridge overnight. Repeat steps 1 to 6 for the strawberry and orange or mango-flavoured jelly.
- Remove the jellies from the fridge and cut into small strips.
- Place the cubes in the bottom one-quarter of a serving glass and pour your tea over the top of the cubes. Serve and enjoy your rainbow jelly boba!
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Calories have been calculated using an online calculator. Nutritional information offered on Honest Food Talks is for general information purposes and is only a rough estimate.
Cooking Tips
If you plan on making this drink topper for your next tea and need a little help, consider reading through our tips. These tricks will improve your experience and result in an even better taste.
Prepare your natural food dye in advance to enhance your preparation time.
We recommend using 1 tablespoon of agar agar powder for 500 ml worth of liquid. This may seem like a lot, but a larger amount of gelatinising agent is required to form jelly that will better hold its shape.
In our photos, you can see that the yellow jelly is softer than the other two. This is because we used less agar agar powder, making it softer. If this is what you prefer, you can go ahead with using less agar agar powder too.
Consider adding coconut water to replace the cold water to add more flavour.
Use different fruit flesh in separate recipes to create more diverse tastes. For example lychee jelly will have a more floral yet tropical taste.
When pouring into the container, make sure to pour through a sieve to filter out any agar clumps that may have formed. The sieve also helps prevent large bubbles from forming during the pouring action. Use a spoon to remove any bubbles formed on the surface of the jelly after you pour it into the container. Otherwise, the bubbles will cause an uneven surface as the liquid cools and hardens into a jelly.
Calories
The calories in our boba topping recipe are around 30 calories per serving (assuming 4 tablespoon in each). However, this will vary depending on what fruits you may use.
What do you think of our rainbow jelly boba topping recipe? We'd love to see your creations. For more recipes and updates, subscribe to our Honest Food Talks YouTube Channel.
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