This naturally sweetened dates syrup recipe makes everything tasty and you can give it to babies 6 months and older guilt-free without worrying about the sugar content in it. And you can make this date simple syrup within a few hours.
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Homemade Date Syrup
Dates syrup is an easy recipe free from sugar & salt and super-rich in iron. Makes it a healthy option for kids and family. In fact, dates add great nutritional value to kids diets. It has a lot of fibre helping with constipation in babies and is rich in iron which is an essential part of kids diet. We have replaced sugar with this dates syrup for most items we make in our kitchen. Dates syrup can be added to roti, idli, dosa or bread. Tastes best when used for baking. Recently, I tried making these 2 ingredient peanut butter cookies & the healthy banana bread recipe using dates syrup & my family loved it.
What is date syrup made of?
To make this healthy recipe, all you need is
- A bowl full of pitted organic dates. You can choose to use the Medjool dates or any organic dates that is available to you.
- And a cup of hot water to soak the dates and help them soften.
Instructions to make Dates Syrup Recipe
- Wash and deseed the dates. If you choose pitted dates, you can eliminate this step. I recommend using Mejdhool dates as they are high in nutrition and are very soft.
- Boil 2 cups of hot water and soak the pitted dates for up to 4 hours. If you pick the dates that are dried, you need to soak them longer. I have used medjool dates in this recipe which are very soft.
- Check if the dates are really soft. Dates soak up some water and becomes very soft to touch.
- Now strain the water and blend the soft dates in a blender. I would keep the strained water in case you need it later.
- Blend until it forms a smooth paste. Alternately, you can add the strained water to the blended mixture to make sure it is not too thick.
- Boil this blended dates paste in a pan on medium flame until all the extra water dries up and the paste turns into syrup consistency. I cooked the paste for up to 30 minutes.
- The syrup resembles honey and turns dark in colour. At this point you can turn off the flame.
- Cool the dates syrup and store them in an air tight glass jar.
FAQs Date Simple Syrup
1. How do you make Nigerian date syrup?
Follow the above instructions. Soak dates in hot water for up to 4 hours, blend into a smooth paste and heat up the paste until it thins out to syrup consistency. I prefer not to strain out the syrup so I can keep all the nutrition as is in them.
2. How healthy is date syrup?
Research says a tablespoon of dates syrup contains double the amount of potassium, magnesium and calcium levels when compared to honey and almost 10 times the antioxidants. None of which is present in refined sugar.
3. Should date syrup be refrigerated?
While you can enjoy dates syrup at room temperature, you can refrigerate it so that it can last for up to a month.
4. How do you drink dates syrup?
Dates syrup can be consumed in a variety of ways:
- For babies, you can add dates syrup to pancakes, dosa, idli, chapathi.
- For toddlers, you can add dates syrup to warm milk, milk shakes.
- You can replace sugar with dates syrup in baking and cooking.
- You can replace sugar with dates syrup in coffee and tea.
- Try these delicious 2 ingredient peanut butter cookies made using dates syrup.
- Try the classic banana bread recipe with dates syrup in it.
Dates Syrup Recipe Homemade
Equipment
- Blender
Ingredients
- 200 grams Dates (Mejdhool dates)
Instructions
- Wash and deseed the dates. If you choose pitted dates, you can eliminate this step. I recommend using Mejdhool dates as they are high in nutrition and are very soft.
- Boil 2 cups of hot water and soak the pitted dates for up to 4 hours. If you pick the dates that are dried, you need to soak them longer. I have used medjool dates in this recipe which are very soft.
- Check if the dates are really soft. Dates soak up some water and becomes very soft to touch.
- Now strain the water and blend the soft dates in a blender. I would keep the strained water in case you need it later.
- Blend until it forms a smooth paste. Alternately, you can add the strained water to the blended mixture to make sure it is not too thick.
- Boil this blended dates paste in a pan on medium flame until all the extra water dries up and the paste turns into syrup consistency. I cooked the paste for up to 30 minutes.
- The syrup resembles honey and turns dark in colour. At this point you can turn off the flame.
- Cool the dates syrup and store them in an airtight glass jar.
Very interesting on the making of this syrup. From my growing up, I usually picked the dates off the tree when they were fit and ripe to eat. They were delicious and filling.
I cannot recall my parents ever make syrup, however, from the similarity in this recipe, when made by mom, we called it jam, and spread it on our home made baked bread.
In my opinion, the overall article and topic is excellent to keep for reference for my next weekend baking, especially the values of the healthy benefits it contains.
that is amazing. Yeah you can call it jam too coz I personally avoid straining out the dates. Love to hear what you try. Happy & Healthy baking!
Wow, never thought of turning dates into dates syrup. It looks delicious. Great idea for replacing sugar in kids meal. Thank you for the recipe.
Thank you Pranali! Do share your creation when you try.