Orange Julius! Does anybody else love these creamy, tangy smoothies? They are simple to make at home, and this homemade orange julius recipe is just delicious.

Stacy Lyn drinking a homemade orange julius smoothie with a straw

My Orange Julius Mall Days

I may be giving my age away, but going to Orange Julius® in the mall was the highlight of some junior-high school weekends. How many of you remember those juice stands? They go all the way back to the 1920s, but I promise, I’m not that old! And I’m from Alabama, a long way from the original stands in Los Angeles.

My parents would also be at the mall, of course, but a few of my friends and I would get our cups of orange Julius and head up the stairs to the balcony that overlooked the rest of the mall. We’d sit down, enjoy our orange smoothies, laugh, joke, and have the most independent, fun time of our week. It was such a treat.

Recreating that Orange Creamsicle Goodness at Home

This easy homemade orange julius recipe will satisfy your hankering for the real thing.

I’d forgotten all about the Orange Julius UNTIL our family had COVID, back before they knew it was COVID — late 2019. I craved the Julius taste, maybe because of all that vitamin C. After working on several different versions of my homemade orange julius, I decided on this one as my favorite! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Nowadays, you can get an original Orange Julius frozen treat at Dairy Queen. However, I encourage you to try this copycat orange julius recipe. A “julius freed” is very simple to make at home. Prep time is just minutes.

The original and many homemade versions use frozen orange juice concentrate. That’s fine, but personally, I prefer fresh orange juice. If I can pluck the oranges right off the tree, even better!

You can still get the orange creamsicle effect with ice cubes and either whole milk or skim milk. If dairy is hard on your stomach, you could try this orange julius recipe with coconut milk or almond milk. Any of these will add calcium and protein as well as creamy flavors and texture. For real decadence, I suppose you could use vanilla ice cream. For extra creaminess, you could use vanilla yogurt.

The originally Orange Julius recipe uses powdered egg whites, but I omit that ingredient in this recipe.