It was bound to happen sooner or later – one of the kids has a cold. Aside from the rare sniffle or cough, we have been healthy all fall and winter – with much credit, I think, to the many healing drinks (see some here, here, and here) and nourishing foods (see some here and here) we’ve been enjoying.
I suppose because we haven’t felt a great need to, I haven’t made elderberry syrup yet, though I’ve had elderberries from this wonderful herbal establishment for months. Today our little one’s sniffles signalled that it would be a great time to make some.
After searching online a few places, I ended up making a simple recipe based on the amount of dried berries we had on hand. I added some foraged rose hips since we didn’t have many elderberries!
Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup dried elderberries (I wasn’t planning to write a post when I started making the syrup, and neglected to take a picture of the dried elderberries. You can see them in the second photo, which is of our chocolate elderberry syrup ingredients).
- 3 tablespoons dried rose hips
- 1.5 cups water
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- a bit of grated ginger or just a 1″ piece of ginger, peeled
- 2-3 tablespoons honey (vary depending on how sweet you’d like your syrup)
Directions:
1. Add the water, elderberries, rose hips, cinnamon, and ginger to a pot.
2. Bring to a boil, and then simmer on low for 30-40 minutes.
3. Using a sieve, strain and mash the berries, getting out as much goodness as you can!*
4. Once the syrup is still warm, but not hot, add the honey.
5. Pour off into a canning jar or bottle and use as needed. Store in the refrigerator.
Note: After I strained my syrup, I was staring at the berries and wondering how to extend them – if I could get another, smaller, batch of syrup. Then Brittany from The Pistachio Project tweeted a great idea for getting more out of the berries. Perfect.
Optional: We LOVE adding star anise to our syrup, and keeping it in the jar or bottle in the fridge so that it tastes more and more like licorice each day!
Alternate: We’ve also made chocolate elderberry syrup which is delicious for pancakes, waffles, etc.
This post was shared as a part of Simply Natural Saturdays and Simple Lives Thursday.
Made some today. Finally. Realized these kids need to get better sooner than later! What a smell and colour!
I saw your beautiful photo – great idea to add mullein, fennel, and elder flowers! Going to do that on our next round, if we can ever get out to Hollow Reed…
Thanks for sharing at Simple Lives Thursday. This is definately the time to be making elderberry syrup. Your chocolate elderberry syrup sounds wonderful! Hope to see you again this week.
Thanks Angi! We’ve recently been adding it to our homemade gelatin gummies, which the kids love. Thanks for sharing! Will definitely be back for the link up again soon.