Flavor and sweeten coffee and tea with this homemade vanilla simple syrup that’s simple to make at home with 3 ingredients in 5 minutes. It’s perfect for making Starbucks drinks at home.
Vanilla Simple Syrup
The best way to flavor and sweeten drinks is with simple syrup. Simple syrup is a liquid sweetener made by dissolving sugar into water. Vanilla simple syrup adds vanilla to the sugar and water.
This vanilla syrup uses vanilla extract to flavor and it’s incredibly easy to make at home for a fraction of the cost of store-bought. Use high-quality vanilla extract to get a better tasting syrup.
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Recipe Highlights
- Vanilla syrup is a simple syrup with vanilla extract. There’s only 3 ingredients: sugar, water, and vanilla extract.
- This recipe makes a cup of vanilla syrup which can be used to flavor and sweeten your coffee or tea.
- Use vanilla syrup to flavor hot and iced drinks and to flavor whipped creams and cold foams.
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Ingredient Notes
- Vanilla extract: Not all brands are the same when it comes to vanilla extract. The low cost options taste like chemicals so you should splurge if you can. A little goes a long way and a bottle will last a while.
- Sugar: Use regular white sugar or cane sugar. You can use brown sugar but it’ll take a little longer to dissolve.
- Water: Filtered water is best for a better tasting syrup.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: Put sugar and water in a saucepan and simmer on low heat. Stir to make sure sugar dissolves completely.
Take off heat and add vanilla extract. Let cool.
Step 2: Pour vanilla syrup into an airtight container.
The syrup will keep for up to 2 weeks in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Expert Tips
- Don’t cook the vanilla extract since it can lose flavor. Only add it at the end after the dissolved sugar and water is off the heat.
- There’s no need to bring the sugar and water to a boil. Heating the water just hot enough to dissolve the sugar is enough.
- Use 1-2 tablespoons of syrup per serving.
Questions You May Have
Stir 1-2 tablespoons of vanilla syrup into a cup of warm milk to make a vanilla steamer.
Add some syrup to sparkling water to make your own vanilla soda! Or try adding it to hot tea (Earl Grey and vanilla are great together), iced coffee, or hot chocolate.
You can use any sweetener you prefer. Replace the white sugar in the recipe with brown sugar, coconut sugar, honey, maple syrup, or date sugar.
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Homemade Vanilla Simple Syrup
INGREDIENTS
- ¾ cup water
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
INSTRUCTIONS
- Put sugar and water in a saucepan and simmer.Stir to make sure sugar dissolves completely.
- Take off heat and add vanilla extract.
- Pour syrup into an airtight container.The syrup will keep for up to 2 weeks in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
NOTES
- Don’t cook the vanilla extract since it can lose flavor. Only add it at the end after the dissolved sugar and water is off the heat.
- There’s no need to bring the sugar and water to a boil. Heating the water just hot enough to dissolve the sugar is enough.
- Recipe makes 1 cup (16 tablespoons) of vanilla syrup. To flavor and sweeten drinks, use 1-2 tablespoons of syrup per 1 cup serving.
This is my second time using this recipe. I love it. It’s so simple, quick, easy, and tasteful. I made homemade iced coffees all weekend for my sisters.
I would splash some right in the iced coffee as well as in our homemade cold foam.