The first year I canned fruit syrups, I gifted my sister a couple of jars. The next year, she asked for a full box of jars filled with the jewel-toned syrups. In her house, they get used more often than jams: drizzled on pancakes or waffles, stirred into yogurt, blended into smoothies, and more.

I like making summertime fruit syrups because I can pair fruit and herbs in the same way I do for shrubs, ending up with a sweet concoction rather than a sweet-and-tangy vinegar-spiked one. The downside, as with jelly, is that it takes a lot of fruit to fill a canner-load of jars. So I created a recipe for my Twice as Tasty column this week for the Flathead Beacon that takes just one bag of fruit from the freezer and turns it into a jar of syrup you can keep in the fridge.

Learn more about making fruit syrups and get the complete recipe for Frozen Strawberry Syrup in my column.

Make it, share it.
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Twice as Tasty

When I make fruit syrups in summer, I often roast the freshly picked fruit, which releases juices and adds flavor but darkens the jar’s contents. Frozen fruit doesn’t roast well but easily releases its juice as it defrosts and stays bright and colorful. This gives plenty of flavor options year-round, which I pair with fresh herbs during the growing season and home-dried herbs in other months. Some of my favorite combinations are roasted berries or rhubarb with rosemary, fresh strawberry with lavender or chamomile, red raspberry with thyme, golden raspberry with wild rose petals, tart cherry with basil, and plum with bay leaves.

I cut back the sugar in the recipe I shared this week in the Flathead Beacon, but you can use the same flavor combination with more sugar if you want to can the jars or keep them longer in the fridge. On the blog, you can find more specifics and canning instructions in this master recipe, along with a few other fruit syrup recipes.

• Roasted Raspberry Syrup
• Rhubarb–Ginger Syrup
• Rhubarb–Rosemary Syrup

You can find more ways to use frozen fruit in the recipe index. You can also learn more about freezing fruit and other preserving techniques in this blog post.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.