Lavender Simple Syrup

This lavender simple syrup is an easy and delicious way to add herbal flavor to your favorite recipes.

This two ingredient lavender syrup recipe is a breeze to make and perfect for creating delicious lavender flavored drinks and recipes.

This recipe is similar to our lavender sugar recipe, but dissolves faster in drinks.

Ingredients

Lavender: You’ll need culinary lavender for any recipe your making intended for consumption. This is the exact one I used. If you don’t use culinary grade, you’ll end up with a soapy flavor syrup instead of a delicious lavender flavored syrup. We used dried lavender buds. But fresh lavender can easily be used as well.

Granulated Sugar: Regular white sugar works best for this.

Water: Water will help dissolve the sugar and helps create a liquid base for your syrup.

Salt: A tiny pinch helps add depth and bring out the flavor of the lavender.

Equipment

Small sauce pan: To heat water and melt sugar, creating your simple syrup.

Funnel: To transfer your syrup into a sealable container. I like to use my ceramic pour over, as it fits my fabric mesh strainer perfectly.

Cheese cloth or filter: To strain out the lavender bits, you could also use a fine mesh strainer. I used a “fabric” filter I made from an extra straining bag I had on had. I simply wash and reuse this filter. It works perfect for these types of recipes.

Make sure to check out my favorite herbalist equipment for more details on the best equipment to keep on hand.

Instructions:

To make lavender simple syrup, start by gathering all your ingredients.

Place your sugar and salt into a large bowl and mix together.

Place the water in your sauce pan and bring to a boil.

Turn the heat down to medium heat and slowly stir in your sugar and salt mixture.

Be sure to stir constantly while adding your sugar. You want to melt your sugar into the water, without carnalizing the sugar.

If the heat is too high, your sugar with caramelize before it melts into a syrup. So be sure to stir quickly and constantly until your sugar is fully dissolved.

You’ll notice the water turn thicker and stickier. This is exactly the texture you want!

Once your sugar is completely melted into your water, and it forms your simple syrup, remove the pot from the heat.

Then add in your lavender.

Don’t add in the lavender during the cooking process, this will create a soapy flavor that over powers your syrup recipe.

Instead, think of it the way you would brew a cup of tea. You want to add it in to steep after the water has been heated and removed from heat.

Let your lavender steep in the hot syrup for 20 minutes or so.

Place your cheese cloth or strainer over a mason jar and filter out lavender from the syrup.

Once your syrup is completely drained, press down on the lavender buds to push out any additional syrup that’s stuck inside.

Now you have homemade lavender syrup ready to use in drinks and baked goods!

Storage

When stored properly, lavender simple syrup should last up to 1 month in the fridge.

I suggest making sure to sterilize your container before pouring your syrup in. This will help it last longer but decreasing any bacterial contamination.

Glass is the easiest to do this with, so any kind of mason jar or re-purposed jar like a jelly jar is a great storage container.

I like to sterilize mine by boiling my jar in water for a few minutes and then popping it in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes to dry it.

Then let your jar cool to room temperature before transferring your syrup. Make sure the lid is on tight and securely to limit air contamination.

Alternatives

I used 2 cups of sugar for our syrup. This makes it much sweeter, thicker and more concentrated.

You could easily make this exact recipe with only 1 cup of sugar.

We used regular sugar for this recipe, but you could easily substitute the granulated sugar with another dry sugar, such as coconut sugar or raw sugar.

If you have fresh lavender blossoms, you can use those instead of the dried lavender. I’d personally use twice as much fresh lavender than I would dried, as it tends to be less concentrated in flavor.

How to Use Lavender Syrup

This syrup is delicious and can be used in so many different ways.

Here are some of our favorite suggestions:

• Use to sweeten your hot teas, especially earl grey tea
• Use to make a lavender iced tea
• Make lavender lemonade
• Mix 1 tablespoon into mineral water for a “lavender soda”
• Use in place of sweetener in baked goods
• Add to warm milk to make a lavender latte, this is super popular in our local coffee shop

You can just as easily cut the sugar in half and only use 1 cup instead.

If you choose to use the full 2 cups of sugar, make sure to take this into account when adding to your drinks and recipes, as it’s twice as sweet.

So depending on what your making, you may want to use less of it than you would a regular syrup.

Gifting Your Syrup

Homemade herbal gifts are a wonderful way to show a little love to someone.

This homemade syrup is no exception. If you want to give this to someone as a gift, simply put it in a pretty glass container like this one and add a label.

You could even right out ideas on how to use this simple syrup on your label to your gift getter.