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I have been making elderberry syrup at home for decades, mostly as a base for drinks or sauces, but it is also good for you. What follows is my elderberry syrup recipe, tested over nearly 20 years.
My elderberry syrup recipe developed out of a system I’ve used all my adult life for preserving berries: Juice them, add an equal proportion of sugar to make a syrup, and use that shelf stable syrup all year for sauces, glazes, to make sorbet or ice cream, or just to add to soda water for a nice drink.
That said, most people make elderberry syrup for medical reasons. Many studies suggest that it can help your immune system, and elderberry has been used as medicine by more or less every culture that has the plant growing in its environment, from Native Americans to Europeans to northern Asia.
Finding Elderberries
Keep in mind that my elderberry syrup recipe uses blue elderberries, which are Sambucus nigra subspecies caerulea. That’s what I have near me. Black elderberry is more widespread, and is the main species used to make elderberry syrup. I know of no one who uses red elderberry for making syrup.
You can find wild elderberry plants all over the West, starting in pockets in New Mexico and growing increasingly common as you head to the Pacific, as well as all over the eastern part of the United States and Canada, to about the Great Plains. It’s all over Europe, too.
Where I live in Northern California, they start coming ripe at the end of May, and depending on what state or province you live in you can find them somewhere all the way into November. A tip on picking ripe elderberries: The stems turn red. Ripe berries with green stems still have a little ways to go.
Sometimes you can find ripe elderberries at farmer’s markets, although it’s rare.
Recipes that Use Elderberry Syrup
Most people use elderberry syrup as a sort of medicine, “taking” a spoonful a day or twice a day or somesuch. That’s fine, but I don’t make elderberry syrup for that. I use it liberally.
It’s so versatile. Uses for elderberry syrup include:
- Homemade soda base. Add a glug of syrup to a glass with ice, then top with club soda or seltzer water. Super good!
- A mixer for cocktails. I’ve seen elderberry syrup added to gin, dropped into a martini, used in a whiskey sour, etc. My favorite? A splash in silver tequila, with a bit of lime.
- A base for elderberry ice cream, which is amazing.
- Use it as a drizzle over other ice creams, or as a glaze for poultry.
- Elderberry syrup is also great in a classic Cumberland sauce.
- As a flavoring for panna cotta or creme caramel.
- Pour it over pancakes!
The possibilities are pretty endless. And since elderberries grow in most of the 50 states, as well as in Canada and most of Europe, there’s no reason you can’t go outside and get some yourself.
My Elderberry Syrup Recipe
Making your syrup seems pretty intuitive. I mean, all you need are elderberries and sugar, right? Well, yes. But my method for making the syrup is different from most others.
Other recipes ask that you cook your elderberries, mash them with a potato masher and let them drain through a jelly bag. There is a problem with this. You will never break all the berries with this method, and, given that it is a time-consuming and persnickety business to take all those elderberries off their stems — the stems are mildly toxic, by the way — you really want as much juice as you can get.
A better way is to use an immersion blender and a food mill to make short work of our little blue friends.
Works so well you can get twice as much yield from your elderberries. Twice, you say? Yes, twice. Another elderberry syrup recipe may require you to add water to your boiling berries. I suppose that works fine, but with my method you don’t have to water down your berries to make a sufficient amount of syrup — unless you are in a serious drought.
Do it this way and you will get 3+ pints of elderberry syrup from 3 pounds of elderberries, as opposed to 2 pints from 2 pounds of elderberries with another 2 to 4 cups of water thrown in. Believe me, this is a huge flavor difference.
When they are on their stems, it is roughly equivalent to half a paper grocery bag. On a good year, harvesting that can take you all of 10 minutes to harvest. Destemming, however, will take an hour — if you are good at it.
After you have an elderberry mash, you will want to do one of two things: Strain it through a big jelly bag, or heat it up and then run it through the fine plate on a food mill, which removes the seeds.
I do the food mill method, then move the thick liquid to a fine mesh strainer to remove most of the pulp. I do this because I can make elderberry syrup in an hour that way, rather than the overnight drip, drip, drip with the jelly bag method.
Once you have elderberry juice, measure it, and an equal volume of sugar, bring this to a boil and you now have elderberry syrup. Can you use less sugar? Absolutely, but the syrup won’t be shelf stable; it will ferment, and then you will have elderberry wine. But not good elderberry wine.
Can you use honey or some other sweetener? Sure, but the proportion of sugar to juice will be off, and I can’t guarantee your results.
Storing Elderberry Syrup
As I mentioned, this elderberry syrup recipe is shelf stable. Still, I keep it in the fridge, where it has literally lasted three years or more. I’m not joking.
No need to can this because of all the sugar. I know people who keep their syrup in the pantry and theirs has molded after a year or so, so the higher temperature will, eventually, cause you issues.
Elderberry Syrup
Ingredients
- 3 pounds elderberries destemmed
- 4 cups sugar
Instructions
- You will need to remove the berries from the stems; elderberry stems are toxic. (I go through some tricks on destemming elderberries here.) It should take you about 45 minutes to an hour to destem 3 pounds of elderberries, which equates to about a half a normal paper grocery bag.
- At this point you can empty your berries into a large bowl of ice water. Weird debris will float, like dead flower husks, bugs, etc. Pour this off.
- Pour the elderberries into a large pot and either mash them thoroughly with a potato masher, or, better yet, with an immersion blender. Only break up the berries for a few seconds using the immersion blender, and use it on low setting. You don't want to grind up the seeds, which are bitter.
- Bring the elderberries to a boil, stirring often. Now, if you are using a food mill, set it up with its finest plate and pour the elderberries into it. Run the food mill until the mash is pretty dry, then squeeze out any remaining elderberry juice. You should have a little more than 1 quart. Pour the juice through your finest mesh sieve to catch any stray seeds or pulp.
- If you are using the jelly bag method, mash the berries again after they've boiled, then pour them into a jelly bag suspended over a large bowl. Let this drain up to overnight. You should have a little less than 1 quart. You don't need to strain the juice the way you do with the food mill method.
- Return the juice to the (cleaned) pot and add an equal volume of sugar, normally about 4 cups. Bring to a boil until it froths, skim the froth, then turn off the heat and pour into clean jars. Always use a new canning lid when you are making this syrup, unless you plan on eating it in the next few weeks. Seal the jars and let stand until the lids pop. They will keep for a year on the shelf or in the fridge.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Cheryl: No idea, sorry! But honey tends to be sweeter than sugar, so I’d start with a 2/3 ratio and go from there. Remember honey has its own flavor, too, so you will not have a pure elderberry flavor in this syrup.
Hi! How much if you convert 3 pounds of elderberries to cups? Same proportions if I use honey instead of sugar? Thanks a lot!
Hank, awesome site! Elderberry syrup is on my list. I have been making Gooserry Jam and wanted to do something with Elerberries too. Thanks for the info.. Now off to get some doves tomorrow.
De stemming is not that difficult if you flick them off the stems with a fork
as advised in other sites. In uk the berries are dark red not blue
Best not to use blender as they boil down once you have pulled berries
off the stems. Cut from bush at the thicker stems to hold all the stems on
the bunch together before discarding them together. Happy berrying!
Adriann: Yes, you can use a Vitamix, blender of food processor, but be very careful about over processing — you don’t want to crush the seeds, which are bitter. Maybe try just a couple pulses rather than letting the blender go full blast.
Do you think you can use a blender or vitamix for this? I have been making elderberry syrup for 3 years now with the 2 huge bushes in my yard but it is soooo time consuming to strain and pop them all! I would appreciate any input on this. I do not own an immersion blender and I make a ton of this stuff and give it to family members to keep them healthy all winter!
Thanks!
Tom: I’ve made elderflower syrup for years!
You should also look at making the elderflower syrup or cordial. It is truly delicious and reminds me of spring.
Wow, do I love this site! You are my kinda people.
Last winter I made an elderberry syrup with honey to ward off the winter nasties. It was too late for fresh berries but boiling dried ones worked great. Either the nasties didnt get close to me or this worked.
Incredibly healthy syrup and this year I have my own bees to provide the honey.
Hi Hank,
Love reading your blog and look forward to trying out this method for making elderberry syrup. Would love if you could do a piece on mindful foraging and how it is not nice to park and/or forage from “posted” private property , especially when the homeowner has asked them not to (this is for the two gals driving the silver mini van parked on my property, using a red wagon, foraging elderberries from the trail yesterday, and fruits/vegs from the adjacent farms!).
Thanks! Carolyn from Southport (West Sacramento, CA).
JR: DEFINITELY make some yourself – it is about 300x cheaper than using that Sambucol syrup you buy in the store. Nothing beats free…
Deana: No, whatever you tried was NOT elderberry. Elderberry is sweet and tart, not bitter. Just Google “blue elderberries” or click on the link above for destemming elderberries – that has a good image of what they look like.
Maia: Just tell your family its a sweet syrup for pancakes or whatever. If you don’t tell them it is medicinal, they’ll never notice.
OregonCoastGardener: Nope, never use red elderberries. They are at best nasty, at worst toxic, depending on who you ask. Either way, they are not good eats. Stick with the blue elderberries.
I’ve got my eye on a huge amount of berries. Made this last year using a food mill but I’ll try an immersion blender this time and see how it goes. Time to pull out clothes to wear when processing items that stain!
Thanks for the recipes. I cant wait for our elderberries to get ripe enough to use. I am from Europe, so it´ll take some time.
Hank,
Do you ever use red elderberries for this recipe? Or any other recipe… they are all over the place on the central coast of Oregon right now and lots of people have asked me… thanks.
Hey Hank,
Thanks for this recipe! I am always looking for different ways to use elderberries. Not only are they great for fighting the flu but they also lower cholesterol, improve vision, boost the immune system, improve heart health and are great for coughs, colds, bacterial and viral infections and tonsilitis. Mangiare!
-me
I’m sorry to say I have made elderberry syrup the last three years and no one in my family will use it be me. : ( I use it particularly throughout flu season in my morning filmjölk (a Swedish soured milk, kind of like yogurt) with muesli since elderberries are supposedly excellent at curbing the flu and miniminzing recovery time. Maybe I’ll give it one more shot this year with your recipe. I’m also really keen on trying your elderberry ice cream recipe. Thank you for the post.
I was walking the dog and found what I thought to be an elderflower bush by the pond. The berry tasted terrible but looked right… is there something nasty that looks like it? Trying to get a good picture of a leaf on line to see if I have the right thing because I love elderberry jam and would like to make it. Does it have a horrible bitter taste?
Excited for my elder flower liquer! Shook it for the first time two weeks ago. Used Grappa! I’ll have to try this next.
My father smelled of elderberries…..
Aside from them being plentiful and delicious they are incredibly medicinal. A couple of teaspoons throughout the day when you are feeling the symptoms of a cold can help immensely.
My favorite is on vanilla ice cream though. I made a balsamic elderberry reduction on a whim once that was great with pork….maybe I should get around to making some for myslef instead of raiding our medicine cabinet.
Now that I’ve got to try. It’ll be a while on this side of the pond before the berries are ready – just finished racking the elder flower wine.
Regards,
John