Easy Elderberry Syrup
I have a fun, simple way to incorporate herbal studies into your home while making a deliciously affordable immunity booster!
Elderberries are magical. They are widely used in multiple cultures as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiviral and immune-modulating helper. Best part? They grow abundantly in McHenry County. Now is the time to harvest fresh elderberries in our region. If you don’t have your own elderberry bush, get one! Many of our local conservation districts hold plant sale fundraisers. I purchased our elderberry bush from a county conservation sale and she’s the healthiest plant on our property. If you decide to wild harvest your elderberries, be sure to read up on plant identification so you know what you’re harvesting and check local laws to ensure you’re not illegally removing plant materials from protected sites.
Whether you harvest from home or in the wild, remember to only take what you need (a few bunches of berries). Leave plenty of the beautiful berries for the birds and the plant to continue surviving. There is great honor and responsibility in taking medicine from plants – respect our earth so we can coexist in peace!
Elderberry syrup is a great way to benefit from this special fruit! My recipe was handed down during my herbal studies with Rosemary Galdstar, a wise healer and herbal mentor with decades of plant medicine and knowledge under her belt.
Oh, and plan on getting the kiddos involved! My 8- and 14-year-old daughters had a blast harvesting, plucking and cooking up a batch with my supervision – they did most of the work themselves!
What you need:
1 cup local fresh black elderberries (Sambucus nigra)
3 cups of water
1 cup local honey (your local farmers market has a bunch of amazing honey vendors! Shop local and eat healthier!)
2 saucepans or pots, one with a lid
Spoon
Fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth
Glass measuring cup with a pour lip
Airtight bottles or jars for syrup storage
Directions:
Remove berries from stems - this is a great job for little hands but only those that can be trusted to NOT eat the berries. They are not safe to eat raw in large quantities.
Pour the water into the saucepan and add your berries.
Place the lid on your saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil.
Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes. Remove the lid. Let cool if you have littles helping.
Smash the berries (My kiddos used a spoon for this, but you can also use a potato masher or ladle to smash the berries on the side of the pan - they will be soft and easy to squish!)
Strain the mixture through your strainer or cheesecloth into your second saucepan to remove all the solid berry bits
Mix in your honey! You can add as much or as little as you’d like.
Time to bottle! We don’t have good pour lips on our saucepans so we took an extra step using a glass measuring cup that does have a good lip - if you have a good enough pour lip on your pans to pour directly into your bottles or jars, go for it! You could also use a funnel or our trick: We “took trips” pouring the mixture from the pan into a large glass measuring cup with a pour spout/lip - then we poured from the measuring cup into bottles. The smaller amounts of liquid made it easier for my 8-year old to handle and we didn’t spill.
Store in the fridge for up to 3 months.
In general, a good preventative dose is about 1/2 teaspoon a day for adults or 1/4 teaspoon for kiddos. When illness strikes, kick the dose up to 1-2 teaspoons for adults or 1/2-1 teaspoon for kids, both taken 2-4 times a day until symptoms subside. Do your own research before adding herbal remedies like Elderberry Syrup to your routine – every human body is different and it’s our responsibility to know what we should and should not be putting in our own bodies.
About the author: Jen Buck provides customized, holistic, women-centered birth doula care to area parents. Through Dancing Feathers Farm Co., she sells handcrafted soaps, salves and beeswax wraps, and flowers and veggies at farmers markets. Contact her at info@dancingfeathersfarm.com.