Real gourmet herbs are fantastic…but ridiculously expensive. Here’s how to skip the store and make your own homemade vanilla extract!
How to Make Delicious Vanilla Extract…you get what you pay for
We’ve all been there. You choose vanilla extract at the grocery store. Artificial is cheap, but it’s just chemicals mixed in a food lab. Real vanilla is much better but expensive. And the food is ridiculously expensive. What should shoppers do?
Skip the store. Make your own!
You can make the ultimate premium vanilla extract in your kitchen. Yes, gourmet stuff. Since you make it yourself, you know it contains no artificial colors, flavors or other impurities. It costs a fraction of what you pay at the store:
- Vanilla Extract = $18.19 per cup
- Gourmet Vanilla Extract = $43.60 per cup
- Homemade Delicious Vanilla Extract = $8.74 per cup
Step 1: Gather Materials
You will need scissors (or knife), a lidded mason jar, alcohol (35%–50%) and vanilla beans.
Choosing the Right Vanilla Bean
Vanilla beans are not a standard price in most produce departments or farmers markets. You may need to obtain this information online. Consider the following herb varieties to customize your gourmet creations:
- Madagascar/Bourbon: This is the traditional herb you are familiar with.
- Tahiti: more floral and fruity
- Mexican: Sweet and woody with a hint of spice
- Africa/Uganda: More smoky flavor
These are not your only options. You can also explore vanilla beans in India, Tonga and Indonesia.
As you browse the selection, you may notice that vanilla beans are rated A, B, or C. Grade A beans are more expensive and are used in cooking. They work well in extracts, but the added cost won’t affect your finished product much. Grade B vanilla beans are lower cost and intended for use in extracts.
You can usually buy Grade B beans for $1.50 to $2.00 each, depending on how many you buy at one time.
Which alcohol should you use?
Next, you need to choose an alcohol. Alcohol extracts vanilla flavor and prevents spoilage. You’ll want something between 35%–50% alcohol. About 40% is ideal.
There is no need to spend money on high-priced wine. It’s the quality of the vanilla bean, not the alcohol, that makes great vanilla. So go buy something cheap. Most people will choose wines with mild flavors, but you can also choose wines with complementary flavors. For example, spiced rum can make your herbs exotic.
Step #2: Assemble Your Ingredients
Use scissors or a knife to cut the beans lengthwise and place in the jar. If they are too long, just cut them off to fit. Then pour the alcohol over the vanilla beans.
For “better than supermarket” vanilla extract, use 2-3 beans per cup of alcohol. For gourmet herbs, use 5 beans per glass of alcohol. For exciting, legendary, sell your kids through college vanilla, use 7–8 beans per glass of wine. Besides, the FBI has to come and drag you away.
Put the lid on, give it a shake, and put it in the cupboard. Come back every few days to refresh yourself. It really likes it when you do. Tell it it’s a good vanilla – a beautiful one. Sing a little song to it. (You thought I was joking.)
Now is the hardest part. wait.
How long will you wait? That depends. Do you want premium vanilla, premium vanilla or life-changing vanilla?
- For good vanilla, let it extract for 8 weeks. If you smell it every once in a while. Maybe take a small sample. It’s ok. I can not say.
- For great vanilla, let it extract for 6 months. Yes, 6 months. I know I know. You want your vanilla now. But great vanilla takes time.
- For exciting, life-changing, legendary herbs, let it extract all year. I’ll take a break now and wait for you to finish scolding your computer screen. ( … ) Completed? Good because I have a compromise for you.make 2 batches of vanilla—Each one is enough for a whole year.
Use the first batch over time. It gets better over time as it keeps extracting. Then when it runs out, open up your year old vanilla and let the good times roll in! Remember to start a new batch for next year.
Liars never win?
The two main factors in flavor extraction are time and surface area. (The ratio of alcohol to water is also important, but we’ve covered that.) We can think of this as a formula:
surface area x time = large vanilla
If we want to reduce the extraction time without reducing the vanilla flavor, we need to increase the surface area.
To increase the surface area, we can use scissors to cut the vanilla bean into smaller and smaller pieces. But who has the time? Time is exactly what we are trying to reduce! Let’s keep cheating.
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Throw these beans into your blender. Pour in your wine. Then mix it up like you’re trying to destroy the evidence! You will notice that the liquid darkens immediately.
Continue to cover and shake every few days as you would with the slower method. Turn it on weekly for sampling. You won’t get a year’s flavor maturity in a week, but it will progress faster.
This approach does have some drawbacks. On the one hand, it’s less visually appealing in a jar. Your friends will prefer a can of vanilla beans to a cloudy can of bean flour. Also, it’s hard to filter out small bean clumps, and you might get them in your food. But it can also make it look more real, so that might actually be a bonus. Lastly, vanilla bean flour cannot be easily repurposed for vanilla sugar.
Repurpose Used Vanilla Beans
Can you reuse vanilla beans? Yes, but the resulting extract will not be as strong. Feel free to try. you might like it. If not, just add a fresh bean or two and extract again.
Some people also like to use a “permanent vanilla” system. Whenever they use a bit of vanilla extract, they fill the container with alcohol and let it continue to extract. Depending on how often you use vanilla, the system works fine, although it does degrade vanilla quality over time.
Alternatively, you can make vanilla sugar. Remove used vanilla beans and let them dry. Put them in an airtight container and fill with sugar. Then, let it sit for a few weeks. Use sugar in baking, coffee, tea, or anywhere you want a sweet vanilla flavor.
Food options
You now know how to make delicious vanilla. But it’s still just vanilla. What about fancy flavors? What about creativity? let’s do it!
For one, flavored alcohol can really take your herbs in an interesting and unexpected direction. Another option is to add spices or herbs to the mix. How about a little cinnamon or cloves? How does lavender vanilla or vanilla mint sound? Put them in a jar and let them extract together.
For sweeter vanilla, add honey or maple syrup.
The only limit is your creativity and your courage to try new flavor combinations.
other extracts
We’ve cracked the vanilla extract code, but it’s not over yet. You can make any extract you find in the store, and more! The basic process is the same for all extractions, but I’ll give you some hints for special cases.
Almond Extract
Image Source Ganesh Balasubramanyam from focus on
Almond bark can cause the extract to become bitter. Put them in boiling water before using them. After 1 minute, remove and let them cool. The skin should slide off immediately. Roughly chop the almonds (minus the skins) and place in a jar. About 15 almonds are enough for 2 cups of basic almond extract, but I like to use twice as much.
fruit extract
Fruit usually has a higher moisture content. This will dilute your alcohol content. Either slice and dehydrate the fruit first, or use a slightly higher alcohol concentration. If using fresh fruit, use a 1:1 fruit to alcohol ratio by volume. If using dehydrated fruit, our ratio of fruit to alcohol is 1:2. These ratios are guidelines, not rules. Feel free to try.
What do you think?
Do you make your own extract, or are you thinking about making a flavored extract? Let us know in the comments!
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Scott Sexton was a TGN trailblazer, highly experimental gardener, ruthless weed killer, and mostly nonprofit herbalist (to the chagrin of his wife).When Scott isn’t teaching foraging lessons, testing theories in the garden, or grazing in the forest, he can Facebook page, “Forager’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.”
