Save money by making your own cooking extracts

From a classic vanilla extract to a custom cardamom-cinnamon, make your own extracts for unique flavors, health benefits, and lower costs.

I’ve read about making your own flavor extracts for a few years and it seemed simple enough, but I didn’t get around to trying it myself until a year ago. I’m sharing about the process and health benefits of DIY flavor extracts now because it takes about 2 months of vanilla bean infusion to produce an extract. What’s 2 months from now? The holiday season. Gather some mason jars and (paid link) get some vanilla beans to try making your own extracts and give them to friends and family.

Last year I didn’t get started as early as I’d hoped with making extracts. We celebrate Thanksgiving a few weeks early to avoid stressful holiday travel. I knew I should have started the extract in late August or early September, but garden harvests distracted me. Instead, I set up the extract just before we left and provided it to my parents like this (except full and clear):

My vanilla extract almost a year later. When it started, the bottle was full and the vodka was clear.

I asked them if they knew what it was. They thought it was a seed. Sort of! I explained that it was a vanilla bean in vodka and that in a few months they would have their own vanilla extract. As they use the extract and the bottle gets low, all they’ll need to do is add more vodka. It’s a gift that keeps on giving. (If the flavor ever starts to dissipate, then you can add another vanilla bean.)

Get a pack of vanilla beans to make a few extracts, or share with friends for them to make their own.

Two things I learned from creating that first vanilla extract:

1. Cut the bean. The extract will develop faster if the bean pod has more surface area exposure with the vodka. I missed the opportunity and had left the beans in whole, so it took a little longer for the extract to develop.

2. Fold the bean (depending on your vessel). With the tall flip-top bottles I used, I didn’t think ahead to make sure the bean is always covered in vodka. Folding it over would buy some more time as the extract gets used. I’ve been storing my original extract horizontally to make sure the bean remains covered.

Homemade vanilla latte with homemade vanilla extract.

Vanilla’s résumé of health benefits spans from stress relief to toothache relief. “Some traditional medicinal uses of vanilla include treatment for fever, spasms, dysmenorrhea, blood clotting, and gastrointestinal (GI) distress,” according to NUTRITION TODAY. A 2021 piece published in SPRINGER NATURE cites continued research on vanilla’s anticancer (particularly colon cancer), neuroprotective, and antioxidant power. Plus, vanilla tastes really good. Because of its flavor, adding vanilla can help compensate for reducing sugars when cooking and baking. Sometimes I’ll add vanilla extract to a homemade latte and skip sugar or honey altogether. I find the pairing of vanilla and coffee fascinating because both products originate in similar climates—and cocoa too. According to Logee’s, a provider of rare and tropical plants for more than 130 years, the Aztecs used vanilla to flavor cocoa.

It’s hard to imagine how vanilla was first harvested. According to Logee’s and other vanilla plant growing resources, the vanilla vine flowers for a single day, the flower needs to be pollinated that day to produce a pod, and it takes another 8-to-10 months for the pod to mature. Then the pods need to cure. When cultivated on a home scale, growers must pollinate by hand with a toothpick. This delicate and cumbersome process requires patience and planning, and can easily be disrupted on a commercial scale due to weather or pest events. Vanilla is also the most popular flavor in the world. Understanding the production cycle and demand helps to justify the high cost of vanilla beans. Making your own vanilla extract can cut the cost.

DIY flavor extracts also help avoid synthetic ingredients, genetically-modified products, and artificial flavors. According to the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit dedicated to helping consumers make healthier food choices, “Food manufacturers can use a natural solvent such as ethanol in their flavors, but the FDA also permits them to use synthetic solvents such as propylene glycol. Flavor extracts and food ingredients that have been derived from genetically engineered crops may also be labeled ‘natural’ because the FDA has not fully defined what the term ‘natural’ means.”

I use vodka for tinctures and extracts, but you could also use bourbon or rum to make your own vanilla extract.

To make your own vanilla extract

Ingredients

Vanilla bean(s)

Vodka (you could use bourbon or rum, depending on your preference)

Supplies

Glass mason jar with lid

Optional (for gift giving): Decorative dark dropper bottles (I love the ones I ordered from Mountain Rose Herbs, which I use for my propolis, echinacea, and other tinctures.), swing top bottles, custom labels, twine or ribbon

Directions

1. Slit the vanilla bean down the center. (Use more than one bean for a more intense flavor.)

2. Place or fold it into the mason jar.

3. Fill the jar with vodka so that the liquid covers the bean.

4. Close the jar.

5. Leave it at room temperature in a dark space for approximately 2 months.

6. Start enjoying it yourself or add ribbons or twine to extra bottles if you’re making them as gifts.

Make more than vanilla extract

Cardamom pods. Creating a cooking extract from cardamom takes significantly less time.

I’m trying to make a cardamom-cinnamon extract. When you start diving into different extracts, you’ll learn you need to let them infuse at different times. Cardamom only requires a few days (great for impatient people like me!) and cinnamon will take several weeks. I’m extracting them separately, and then plan to combine part of each extract to make a cardamom-cinnamon blend. BACKWOODS HOME magazine has a great breakdown of constituents and their varying extraction times.

Starting cardamom and cinnamon extracts, which take different times to develop. Once they’re done I’ll combine both for holiday baking and gifts.

Disclosure
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