Elevate your beverage and dessert experience with this delightful sugar-free lavender syrup recipe. This aromatic syrup captures the essence of lavender while keeping carbs at bay, making it a perfect addition to cocktails, teas, lemonades, and desserts. With minimal prep and cook time, you can easily create this enchanting syrup at home.
Why Make Your Own Lavender Syrup?
There's something special about homemade simple syrups. They add a touch of sweetness and sophistication to any drink, making it feel more special. This lavender syrup is not only delicious but also makes for a thoughtful homemade gift.
Benefits of Sugar-Free Syrup
- Low-Carb and Keto-Friendly: Ideal for those watching their sugar intake or following a low-carb or keto diet.
- Calorie-Free (or Virtually Calorie-Free): This allulose & monk fruit-based version is virtually calorie-free.
- Histamine-Friendly: Unlike traditional white sugar simple syrup, this version is not inflammatory, making it a low histamine sweetener.
- Versatile: Perfect for sweetening a variety of drinks and desserts.
- Long-Lasting: Can be stored in the freezer for up to six months (or even a year, if stored particularly well).
- Vegan: Since this is sweetened with allulose, it's naturally vegan friendly!
Ingredients
This recipe requires just a few simple ingredients:
- Water
- Dried culinary lavender buds (or fresh lavender blossoms)
- Sugar replacement (Allulose & Monk Fruit sweetener blend, erythritol and stevia, monk fruit, or xylitol)
- Optional: Lemon juice (to preserve the syrup and enhance the color)
- Optional: Butterfly pea flowers (for a darker purple hue)
- Optional: Purple food coloring (for a vibrant hue)
- Optional: Vanilla extract or vanilla bean
Choosing the Right Lavender
- Culinary Lavender: It's important to use culinary lavender, which is grown and harvested specifically for use in food. Culinary lavender has a sweeter and less pungent flavor than ornamental lavender.
- Fresh vs. Dried: This recipe is designed for culinary-grade lavender buds. You can also use fresh lavender blossoms, but keep in mind that dried lavender has a stronger taste than fresh lavender, meaning you may need to adjust the quantity.
- Organic: Make sure to buy organic culinary lavender to avoid pesticides and chemicals.
Sweetener Options
- Allulose: Allulose is a great option as it dissolves without crystallization.
- Erythritol and Stevia: The one and only non-whole food thing that I use is a sugar-free sweetener, and I stick with ones made with erythritol and stevia.
- Monk Fruit: Make this a zero carb syrup by replacing the granulated sugar for monk fruit.
- Xylitol: You can use allulose, monk fruit, or xylitol as sweeteners.
- Other sugar free sweeteners: Feel free to use any sugar free sweetener you want, like stevia liquid sweetener.
Additional Flavors
- Vanilla: I have also made this Sugar-Free Lavender Simple Syrup recipe with a vanilla bean.
- Butterfly Pea Flowers: These don't add much to the flavor, and they're completely optional. We use butterfly pea flowers to develop the lovely darker purple hue of this syrup!
How to Make Sugar-Free Lavender Syrup
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Prepare the Lavender Mixture: Heat the water in a metal-bottom pan until just simmering.
- Add Sweetener and Lavender: Pour in your allulose (or cane sugar) & lavender, and stir everything together until the sweetener has dissolved.
- Simmer: Heat the lavender mixture on low for ten minutes (set a timer), never letting it get above a simmer, stirring occasionally.
- Infuse (Optional): When your timer goes off, remove the mixture from the heat and let it sit on a cool burner for ten more minutes (to infuse further).
- Strain: Then strain the mixture and preserve your keto lavender syrup in a closed container in the fridge for up to 10 days.
Detailed Recipe
- Combine Ingredients: In a medium-size saucepan, add water, sweetener, and dried lavender. If using butterfly pea flowers, add them now.
- Heat and Dissolve: Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring often to dissolve the allulose. Boil for 2-3 minutes, stirring often to dissolve the allulose.
- Add Lemon Juice (Optional): Add in a few drops of fresh lemon juice to make this lavender simple syrup purple. The lemon juice will react with the butterfly pea flowers and turn the water purple.
- Infuse: Remove from heat and allow the mixture to steep for at least 20 minutes to infuse the lavender flavor. Taste to ensure it tastes how you like.
- Strain: Using a fine mesh strainer, strain into a clean container. Allow the lavender simple syrup to cool before adding it to any cocktails!
Tips for Success
- Don't Overcook: If your lavender syrup is bitter, it’s likely because the lavender flowers were over-cooked. Be sure to remove the syrup from the heat as soon as it comes to a boil to avoid this.
- Taste as You Go: Make sure to taste the lavender syrup as you go to avoid making this lavender simple syrup too floral/herbal tasting. It's easy to over-do it with lavender, and it can go from delicious, to too much very easily.
- Adjust Sweetness: When making easy syrups like this, remember to taste if it suits your taste.
- Consistency: As it reaches boiling, the xanthan gum will cause the mixture to thicken to the consistency of simple syrup.
How to Use Sugar-Free Lavender Syrup
This lavender simple syrup recipe is perfect for adding flavor to all kinds of drinks. Here are a few ideas on how you can use it:
- Lavender Lemonade: A summertime favorite that’s perfect for entertaining.
- Lavender Cocktails: This lavender syrup is perfect for adding to all kinds of cocktails. Try it in a lavender martini or a lavender gin and tonic; 2 ounces gin, 1/2 ounce lavender syrup, 4 ounces tonic and fresh lime juice.
- Lavender Coffee: No need to go to a coffee shop to get your fix!
- Lavender Tea: Whether you like iced tea or hot tea, you can find a use for this syrup! Some great pairings would be early grey tea or chamomile for extra calming properties.
- Lavender Latte
- Lavender Martini
- Lavender Gin Fizz
- Desserts: Drizzle over keto-friendly desserts for a touch of floral sweetness.
Storage Tips
- Refrigerate: Yes, the simple syrup should be stored in the refrigerator.
- Airtight Container: Store in an airtight container like a sterilized mason jar.
- Shelf Life: You can store at room temperature for up to 24 hours if the lemon juice is added, but then it should be discarded. To preserve the shelf life, store it in the fridge for 2 weeks, up to 1 month.
- Freezing: If you want to make a larger batch of syrup to enjoy any time of year, you can store it in the freezer in a sealed container for up to 6 months.
Troubleshooting
- Why is my lavender syrup bitter? If your lavender syrup is bitter, it’s likely because the lavender flowers were over-cooked. Be sure to remove the syrup from the heat as soon as it comes to a boil to avoid this.
- Why is my simple syrup cloudy? If your simple syrup is cloudy, it’s likely because the sugar hasn’t completely dissolved. Be sure to stir the syrup until the sugar has melted before removing it from the heat. If your syrup has been in the fridge for a while or sitting out for a long time, cloudy syrup could also mean it’s gone rancid.
Keto Simple Syrup Recipe
Ingredients:
- 1 c. Distilled Water
- 1/2 c. Erythritol
- 1/4 t. of Xanthan Gum
- 5 drops of liquid Truvia or Stevia
Instructions:
- Place the distilled water into a saucepan, along with the erythritol.
- Take a 1/4 teaspoon measurer and fill it up on a 1/4 of the way with xanthan gum (this is a dry powder). Pour this into the saucepan and whisk well. NOTE: This is 1/16 of a teaspoon. The xanthan gum will want to clump up, but do your best to whisk it into the erythritol and water mixture.
- Heat the mixture over medium to high heat and continue to whisk now and then. (Note: Eventually when the simple syrup is made and cooled you can shake up the bottle and any little clumps of xanthan gum will be shaken into the mixture.)
- As it comes up to a boil, drop in 5 drops of sweet drops.
- As it reaches boiling, the xanthan gum will cause the mixture to thicken to the consistency of simple syrup. Let it boil for 45 seconds and then pull off the heat and cool. You can taste it and add more sweet drops if you desire a super-sweet simple syrup.
- When cool, place in a mason jar and shake well to remove any specks of xanthan gum.
Notes:
- This sugar-free erythritol simple syrup lasts indefinitely and will not crystalize.
- If you encounter issues, consider leaving the syrup out on the shelf.
Embrace the Keto Lifestyle
In my opinion, one of the main reasons the Keto diet is so successful is it's promotion of the sugar alcohol, erythritol. Keto diet icons didn't invent erythritol, it's actually been around for over 100 years used mostly to sweeten protein drinks and fitness supplements. Erythritol is 70% as sweet as table sugar with virtually no caloric intake, and here's the thing… Before the Keto diet became wildly popular, erythritol was not widely available to home consumers. Keto cookbook authors and writers brought this ingredient to the forefront and consumers insisted erythritol be stocked in stores. Now it's virtually everywhere… and it's delicious.
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