Homemade Blueberry Simple Syrup
Our recipe for blueberry simple syrup is delicious and easy to make with just a few ingredients. This is delicious mixed into lemonades, matcha lattes, cocktails, or mocktails!Makes about 12 ounces of syrup (1 ½ cups syrup)
Servings 12 servings
Calories 73kcal
Ingredients
- 18 ounce container fresh blueberries (or frozen wild blueberries)
- ¾ cup unbleached sugar
- ½ cup water (use less water if using frozen wild blueberries)
- 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Instructions
With fresh farmed blueberries:
- Add the washed blueberries, sugar, water, and lemon juice to a 2-quart saucepan and stir together.18 ounce container fresh blueberries, 3/4 cup unbleached sugar, 1/2 cup water, 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- Cook over medium heat until the liquid begins to simmer, and lower the heat to medium-low heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
- You want the blueberries to release their liquid but you don't want the fruit to be mushy, it still needs to have some shape so you don't get a lot of fruit puree into the syrup.
- Remove from the heat and pour the fruit and juice into a mesh strainer to separate the syrup, pressing gently on the fruit to help release the juice/syrup. Press gently on the fruit to encourage the juices to come out, but don't press the fruit or puree through the strainer.
- Allow the fruit to drip juices into the bowl for about 5 minutes. You can use the leftover fruit for smoothies or oatmeal (the leftover fruit won't be as flavorful).
- Pour the strained syrup through another finer mesh strainer (like a fine mesh tea strainer) to filter out more of the fruit solids.
- Allow the syrup to cool completely and store in a jar. If the syrup thickens or coagulates in the fridge due to the natural pectin, just stir or whisk the syrup until it's smooth again before using (this didn't happen with the wild blueberry syrup).
With frozen wild blueberries:
- Add 18 ounces of the frozen wild blueberries to the saucepan along with the same amount of sugar and lemon juice as the fresh blueberry recipe (¾ water and 2 Tablespoons lemon juice), but reduce the amount of water by 2-4 Tablespoons.
- Stir to combine and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. This will take longer to bring to a simmer than with fresh blueberries since these are frozen, it took me about 14 minutes to bring mine to a simmer.
- Once the liquid is simmering, lower the heat to medium-low and simmer for 8-10 minutes. I was able to cook these longer than with the fresh blueberries. As with the fresh blueberries, you want the fruit to soften and release its juice, but you want the fruit to still hold its shape and not become mushy.
- Pour the blueberries and juice through a metal strainer to separate the juice/syrup. You can gently press the fruit to release the juice but don't push any fruit pulp through the strainer.
- Allow the fruit to drain over your pitcher or bowl for about 5 minutes. Put the discarded fruit in a container for later to add to smoothies or oatmeal (it won't be as flavorful just FYI).
- I double-strained my syrup, so I took the syrup and poured it through a fine mesh nylon strainer to filter out even more solids for a smoother syrup.
- Storage instructions are the same as the fresh blueberry instrctions.
Notes
The nutrition info listed above is not completely accurate since this nutrition calculator estimates the nutrition with the whole blueberries and not just the blueberry juice.
Nutrition
Serving: 2Tablespoons | Calories: 73kcal | Carbohydrates: 19g | Protein: 0.3g | Fat: 0.2g | Saturated Fat: 0.01g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.02g | Sodium: 1mg | Potassium: 36mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 17g | Vitamin A: 23IU | Vitamin C: 5mg | Calcium: 3mg | Iron: 0.1mg
