This site contains affiliate links. Please see Policies for more information.
This Skinny Cranberry Margarita recipe is the perfect balance between healthy and indulgent. No added sugar or artificial sweeteners, no syrups, but full of flavor and natural sweetness with about 100 calories.
This recipe is light and bubbly and just as good without the tequila. It’s a perfect low calorie holiday cocktail, but I make these any time of year–not just during the holiday season.
I’m always looking for low calorie tequila drinks, since I don’t care to drink anything super sweet or heavy. Even with a couple of candied cranberries, these margaritas aren’t too sweet–they make the best low calorie Christmas cocktail.
This recipe is considered healthy because it has just a few simple ingredients–sparkling water (you could also use club soda, but I haven’t seen flavored club sodas so I stick with the water), fresh limes, tequila (or vodka!), and cranberry juice.
I didn’t add orange juice, sugar, or other liqueur options because to be honest this recipe doesn’t need them. This is a delicious sugar free, artificial sweetener free cranberry cocktail. Whether you’re looking for a skinny poolside cocktail or a low calorie holiday drink, this recipe is simple and refreshing!
Ingredients
- Sparkling water: Plain sparkling water like Perrier is great, but I really enjoy the extra flavor of flavored sparkling water. Just be sure whatever you choose doesn’t have any sugars or artificial sweeteners.
- Tequila: Be sure and use a good quality tequila. Lower quality tequilas often have extra ingredients that you probably don’t want to be drinking (man, I could write an entire post on that!). Cazadores, Don Julio, and Herradura are great options that you can find in your local grocery store. For this recipe, I prefer silver tequila.
- Cranberry juice: Look for 100% juice. A lot of bottled cranberry juice contains sugar so be sure and read your label.
- Fresh Lime juice From freshly squeezed limes, of course ;)
Quick Instructions
- If you’d like to drink this cocktail over ice, add ice, tequila, lime juice, and cranberry juice to your glass. Fill to the top with sparkling water and enjoy!
- If you’d rather shake this cocktail, add ice to a glass and the following ingredients to a cocktail shaker: tequila, lime juice, and cranberry juice. Shake for 15 seconds, then pour over ice. Top with chilled sparkling water.
Recipe Tips
- For a little added sweetness, rim the glass with lime juice and coat with raw sugar. I don’t often do this, but every once in a while it’s fun to. If you are serving these to someone who prefers sweet, go ahead and add a splash of simple syrup.
- For a festive presentation, add 3 whole cranberries to a toothpick for a garnish. If you want to make sugared cranberries like I did for these pictures you can, but know that this will bump it out of the 100 calorie range.
- This recipe is great over ice or shaken and poured.
- Not feeling the alcohol? Skip the tequila and enjoy the delicious mocktail version.
- Not loving the Sparkling Cranberry Margarita? You can use still water instead of sparkling!
- This is a perfect cocktail to serve alongside your Thanksgiving dinner.
Healthy Eating Plans
If you’re on a healthy eating plan, this should fit right into it. As a 21 Day Fix margarita it fits perfectly as a treat swap (any alcohol is a treat swap). As a Weight Watchers margarita, it’s a low point cocktail–just 4 points on all plans.
If this cocktail doesn’t fit into your healthy eating plan, the mocktail version of this recipe might work better for you–simply leave the alcohol out of the recipe and enjoy!
- 21 Day Fix/Ultimate Portion Fix: Each of these margaritas is a Yellow Treat swap for The Fix. That means you can trade one of your daily yellows for this, and believe me it’s worth it.
- Weight Watchers: Each margarita is: 4 Blue Plan Points | 4 Green Plan Points | 4 Purple Plan Points | 2022/2023 points: 3
More skinny cocktail recipes
One of my favorite things to do is take naturally flavored sparkling water and make different cocktails with it. I have several made for you to spark your creativity on how you can use the same sparking water to make lower calorie versions of your favorite cocktails–these are all right around 100 calories.
- Ginger Cranberry Mule To make this a lower calorie Moscow Mule, use 1/4 cup ginger beer, tequila or vodka, lime, and then fill the rest of the glass with sparkling water (flavored or unflavored).
- Vodka Popsicles with Lemonade
- White and Red Wine Popsicles
- Strawberry Bubble Tea Margaritas
- 100 Calorie Peach Margarita
- Skinny Watermelon Margarita
- Pineapple Margarita
- Skinny Pina Colada
- Apple Cider Margarita To make this low cal, reduce the apple cider to 1/4 cup and leave out the Schnapps.
Delicious Skinny Cranberry Margarita Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 oz tequila
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- ¼ cup cranberry juice
- ice cubes
- 10 oz sparkling water I prefer lime flavored
Instructions
- Add tequila, lime juice, cranberry juice, and ice to your glass, then fill to the top with sparkling water. 1 oz tequila, 2 tbsp lime juice, ¼ cup cranberry juice, ice cubes, 10 oz sparkling water
- Stir and serve, or add everything except sparkling water to a cocktail shake with ice, shake and serve. Top with sparkling water.
Notes
- Weight Watchers: Each margarita counts as: 4 Blue Plan Points | 4 Green Plan Points | 4 Purple Plan Points | 2022/2023 Points: 3
- 21 Day Fix/Ultimate Portion Fix: Each of these margaritas is a Yellow Treat swap for The Fix. That means you can trade one of your daily yellows for this, and believe me it’s worth it.
Nutrition
Make This Recipe?
Make sure to follow on Pinterest @bludlum and on Instagram @beccaludlum
So good I almost had one too many ;) Great recipe! keeping these around all of Christmas!
I want to make this for a holiday party coming up. Should I use sweetened or unsweetened cranberry juice?
Unsweetened! :)
This looks so good! I love that you use sparkling water! What a great way to cut calories!
Thanks for sharing! Can I make a concentrate ahead of time?
Absolutely!
I apologize if this is a daft question, but I’m going to attempt this as a bulk drink as well. Is the concentrate of all of the ingredients and then add the sparkling water when ready to drink? We will be taking it in a limo, so want to minimize the mess, but still want something festive and low cal. Thank you!
I’ve done that–I’ve also made the entire batch at once! The lid on the bubbly water might be an issue, though. So your idea might be best!
Are the cranberries that are on top of the glass for garish just frozen or have salt on them? How did you make them?
They have sugar on them! Here’s a how-to: https://www.thecookierookie.com/easy-sugared-cranberries/ :)
Hi! Can you give bulk measurements for a Punch bowl ?
That depends on how much you want to make. If you want to make enough for 10 drinks, then multiply each ingredient by 10 :)
would salt on the rim work? thats one of my favorite parts of a margarita!
Absolutely! Just account for the sodium if you’re tracking that sort of thing :)
What brand of tequila do you suggest?
For this recipe, we prefer silver tequila. Cazadores, Don Julio, and Herradura are great options that you can find in your local grocery store. :)