This homemade vanilla extract is super easy to make and gives a lovely depth of flavour to your baked goods. Whether you choose to avoid alcohol or, like me, just can’t get hold of it (I’m an expat in a dry country!), this recipe uses glycerin as the base to carry the vanilla flavour instead of the commonly used alcohol base. Once used, you can just keep topping up the bottle with more glycerin and a new vanilla pod every now and then to keep a constant supply of delicious natural alcohol-free vanilla extract.
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Did you know that most good quality vanilla extract is alcohol-based? This sucks for anyone who avoids alcohol, either for religious reasons or by choice.
Moving to a dry country, I was fully expecting not to find alcohol but what I didn’t realise was that it also means no vanilla extract in the supermarkets! Yes, you can get the synthetic vanilla essence but that just doesn’t cut it for me - the flavour is so unnatural and processed. I missed my vanilla extract from home with that powerful vanilla depth of flavour that it adds to my sweet baking.
When I looked online for recipes to make homemade vanilla extract, they were again mostly alcohol-based. Eventually I discovered that you can use glycerin instead of alcohol as the base for the vanilla pods to flavour. And joy of joys, I found an extra-large bottle of food-grade glycerin and a bumper pack of organic vanilla pods on Amazon (#affiliate link) to arrive the next day ready for experimenting with!
Now, 10 months later, I’ve already finished my first few bottles of non-alcoholic vanilla extract and re-filled them with more glycerin and water and a couple of new vanilla pods. It is such a joy to have something that is sustainable and replenishable for continuing use for years into the future! Now I’m not even sure I would go back to shop-bought vanilla extract even when I eventually move back home and can find it in the shops!
Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Quick and easy
- All natural - no nasty additives and preservatives in here, just glycerin, water and real vanilla pods.
- Cost-effective – it is cheaper to make this version at home than to buy the good quality premium vanilla extracts in the shops.
- Alcohol-free – perfect if you avoid alcohol or don’t have it available to you.
- Replenishable – you can keep adding to your bottle so that it is endlessly replenishable!.
Notes About Ingredients
- Glycerin – although not a normal ingredient to keep in your kitchen, this is surprisingly easy to get hold of. Vegetable glycerin is sold on Amazon if all else fails! Just make sure to buy “food-grade” glycerin so that it is suitable for consumption! (ignore all the glycerin products for skin care - they're probably the same stuff but might not have been produced in factories that have the same standards and inspections as food-grade glycerin)
- Vanilla Pods – These are expensive so you want to be efficient with them. You want good quality vanilla – Madagascan and Tahitian vanilla are known to be the most flavourful.
- Water – use filtered or bottled water to avoid impurities from tap water affecting the flavour or preservation of your vanilla extract.
Please see the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for full list of ingredients and their quantities.
How To Make This Vanilla Extract Recipe
This is so easy to make!
1) First stir together the glycerin and water in a jug. The water is less dense than the glycerin so it will sit on top of the glycerin until you give it a good stir.
2) Slice your vanilla pods in half lengthways (all the way along from top to bottom). Then add them to a clean glass bottle (250ml / 8.5oz) and pour the glycerin mixture on top.
3) Shake it all up together and then leave in a cool, dark place for a couple of months to infuse!
Shake the bottle every now and then (maybe once a week if you remember?!) to disperse the flavour.
The colour will change over time, going from a light caramel colour at first to a deep brown after a few months.
Once the mixture is that lovely dark brown colour and smells strongly of vanilla when you open the lid, it’s ready to use.
This is a summary only. Please see the printable recipe card at the bottom of this page for full instructions.
Recipe Tips
There are a few key points to remember when making this recipe.
- Sterilize - It’s best if you sterilize your bottles to avoid any costly mould encounters (you’ll have to throw it away if you find mould in your vanilla extract). To sterilize, wash the bottle then either boil or steam over a large pot of water for a few minutes, or leave it in an oven (lid off) at 100°C for 15 minutes, or if you have lots of things to sterilize, just run it through a steam wash on the dishwasher.
- Batch make – I make 2 or 3 bottles to start with so that I can have a rotating system of always having one in use and two on the shelf maturing. I keep the one I am using at the front of the cupboard and the other two at the back maturing. Then when the front one finishes, I pop another vanilla pod in, add some more glycerin and water, and move it to the back to infuse.
- Quality – use the best quality vanilla pods you can find – the better the quality, the better the flavour of your infusion!
- Vanilla seeds – when slicing the vanilla pods in half lengthways, you need to go all the way along from top to bottom (not just in half crossways). This ensures all the tiny vanilla seeds will be exposed to flavour your extract. Scrape any little seeds that escape onto the chopping board and the knife back into the pods before adding to the bottle so you can get maximum flavour!
- Lie on its side – when the bottle gets to half full or less, I tend to lie the bottle on its side to ensure that the vanilla pods are always covered with the liquid. Not only does it ensure the flavour is still maturing nicely but it makes sure they don’t dry out and attract mold.
How To Use Homemade Vanilla Extract
After a couple of months, once it is fully matured, you can use this homemade vanilla extract in the same way you would use shop bought vanilla extract - although it is a little less concentrated in flavour so I tend to use 1 tablespoon of this homemade vanilla extract wherever the recipe calls for 1 tsp. Here are a few suggestions of recipes to use your extract in:
Bottles of homemade vanilla extract also make beautiful gifts as they look so pretty and people love receiving something that’s homemade and that they will actually use! (I mean, who doesn’t have vanilla extract in their pantry?)
Variations
You can actually use glycerin to make a variety of different flavoured extracts! Change up this recipe to make your own alcohol-free extracts by adding any of the following flavours to the glycerin and water base - just keep to the ratio of 1 part water to 3 parts glycerin and then add your different flavourings accordingly.
- Coffee Extract – add ¼ cup of coffee beans
- Rose Extract – add ¼ cup dried rose petals (washed and dried for consumption)
- Almond Extract – add ¼ cup / 35g almonds, chopped roughly to release their oils
- Orange Extract – add orange zest (1-2 oranges – make sure to wash them first!)
- Raspberry Extract – add ¼ cup frozen raspberries
These flavoured extracts can be used for adding flavour to baked goods but also to drinks, desserts, ice cream, and even added to coconut or cashew cream to pour over cake or desserts.
Replenishing Your Vanilla Extract
Once your vanilla extract is almost finished, you can replenish it as follows:
- add another sliced vanilla pod;
- top up the liquid using a ratio of 3 parts glycerin to 1 part water (or 180ml glycerin to 60ml water in a 250ml bottle);
- close the lid and shake it up, then move the bottle to the back of the cupboard to infuse again for a few weeks until it is a deep brown colour.
If you have two bottles always on the go, then you can use a rotation system having one in use and one maturing at any given time!
Note About Bottles
Just a quick note about bottles… You need to use glass bottles rather than plastic and they need to have a good lid that will allow it to be completely airtight. Also, it is not essential but a straight edge rather than a curved one makes it easier to lie them on their sides as they get empty.
I really like using the swing top type of bottle. You can get them in 250ml / 8.5oz size which is perfect for this recipe and the right size for fitting in a kitchen cupboard but also for fitting a whole vanilla pod in lengthways. They are completely leak-proof, easy to clean and easy to use when cooking because you’re not in danger of dropping a lid or anything like that! I order these bottles on Amazon (#affiliate link).
The only problem with these swing top bottles is that you need to be careful when sterilizing in the oven as the rubber and plastic on the swing top can melt if it gets too hot! I usually sterilize in the dishwasher or by boiling them in a pan but if you want to use the oven, lay them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper to avoid any expensive accidents and make sure not to have the oven any higher than the 100°C needed and do not leave them in longer than about 10-15 minutes.
Storage
This vanilla extract will keep up to a year if stored in a cool dark place like at the back of a cupboard. The older it gets, the more flavour it develops! You can use it indefinitely if you keep topping up with more glycerin and water mixture and adding vanilla pods.
FAQs
If you store it away from sunlight in a cool, dark place, it can keep up to a year. Sterilize your jar and make sure it is completely airtight to prevent spoilage.
Yes! Just use this homemade vanilla extract exactly as you would use store-bought extract. Depending on how long the flavours have been left to develop, you may find the flavour to be not quite as highly concentrated so you might want to add more than the recipe calls for according to your taste. I like a strong vanilla flavour so I usually go for about 3 times whatever the recipe calls for (so if the recipe says 1 teaspoon of shop-bought extract, I will use 1 tablespoon of my homemade extract) but you can adapt this as you use it. It can also taste slightly sweeter than shop-bought so you might want to adjust the sugar levels down very slightly in the recipe.
Vegetable glycerine is a food-grade liquid that works well for extracting flavours from vanilla pods. The consistency is thick (which is why we water it down a little) so it holds the flavour well and is good for using in recipes without adding too much extra watery liquid. It also has a mild sweetness which goes well with the kind of sweet baking that we use vanilla extract for.
Alcohol is indeed a better preservative and better at extracting the vanilla flavour. However, glycerin does a pretty good job and is definitely the next best alternative! This glycerine-based version will keep well for a year although it may not be quite so highly concentrated a flavour. To counter this, you may need to use a little more of this extract than you would the alcohol-based version. I use 1 tablespoon wherever a recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and this works just fine.
📖 Recipe 📖
Homemade Vanilla Extract (alcohol free)
Equipment
- 1 x 250ml glass bottle (must have an airtight lid)
Ingredients
- 180 ml vegetable glycerin, (food grade)
- 60 ml water, (filtered or bottled)
- 3 vanilla pods
Instructions
- Slice the vanilla pods in half lengthways and place them in a 250ml bottle. Stir together the glycerin and water in a jug. Pour the glycerin and water mixture over the vanilla pods into the bottle. Close the lid and shake to mix it about.180 ml vegetable glycerin, 60 ml water, 3 vanilla pods
- Leave in a dark place for at least 2 months to allow the vanilla flavour to infuse into the glycerin mixture. Shake the bottle once a week for best results. Can be left for much longer if necessary - the flavour will just develop further the longer it is left.
- Keep stored in a dark cupboard while using. - Once it gets to half way, you can lie the bottle on its side to keep the vanilla pods in the mixture. - Refill with another vanilla pod and more glycerin and water mixture each time you finish it and leave for another 2 months to infuse.
Notes
- Using this basic ratio of 3 parts glycerin : 1 part water, you can make the right amount for whatever sized bottle you have. The more vanilla pods you put in, the stronger it will be (but allow for displacement by the pods so use a little less liquid).
- Use a sterilised jar to avoid any bacteria growth.
- Double the recipe to make 2 bottles so that you can have a constant supply (1 infusing while using the other - then refill and switch over).
- This will not be as strongly flavoured as regular vanilla extract bought from a shop, so you will need to use more than required in recipes. I find 1 tablespoon of this homemade vanilla extract is about equivalent to 1 teaspoon of store-bought vanilla extract.
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe? Please leave a ⭐ star rating ⭐ on the recipe card!
Recipes To Make With This Vanilla Extract
These are my favourite baked goods to make with this vanilla extract:
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Camilla Sanderson says
Easy, natural, and delicious.