Homemade Elderberry Syrup with Young Living™ Essential Oils

Have you ever heard of elderberry syrup?  I used to buy an elderberry cough syrup when my kiddos were little and found it to be very effective.  Somewhere along the way I somehow forgot about it and quit using it.  This fall, however, I have rediscovered it.  And do you know what else I discovered?  It is more economical and easy-peasy to make it yourself.  Plus, when you make your own you can avoid some questionable ingredients that might be found in some store bought varieties.

Elderberries are extremely high in vitamin C and have a lot of other fantastic qualities to promote wellness.  Take a minute to ask your favorite internet search engine and you’ll see.  You’ll probably also see that there are a lot of recipes to make your own.  I’ve included my recipe below showing how I incorporate Young Living Essential Oils in my syrup.

As a part of our wellness routine, this fall we started drinking this every day (about 1 tsp for the adults and 1/2 teaspoon for the kiddos) right before we drink our daily dose of NingXia Red.  We have increased the amount of elderberry syrup (just like we increase the amount of NingXia Red and essential oils) when we find we are needing some extra support.  I only plan to drink this daily during the fall and winter months and will only use it as needed the rest of the year.

I suppose you could leave the honey out or reduce the amount if you’re watching your sugar intake.  Raw local honey has been known to have some great benefits though (and plus it makes this so yummy) so we keep it in ours.

There are many online sources for the dried elderberries.  I purchased my organic elderberries from Amazon.

The first time I made this, the recipe lasted my family of four for well over a month.  I decided to half the recipe because I wanted to make sure it stayed fresh. So this is my half recipe below.  If you think you want more, double it.  You’ll also see below that I use ginger, cinnamon, and clove essential oils.  If you don’t have all of those, Thieves Vitality would be a good substitution (maybe 3 drops).

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup elderberries
• 1 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup raw honey
• 1 tablespoon fresh or powdered ginger OR 1 drop Young Living Ginger Vitality Essential Oil
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon OR 1 drop Young Living Cinnamon Vitality Essential Oil
• 1/4 tsp clove OR 1 drop Young Living Clove Vitality Essential Oil
• 3 drops Young Living Lemon Vitality Essential Oil
• 3 drops Young Living Orange Vitality Essential Oil

Directions:

Combine elderberries and water in either a medium pot or your Instant Pot (my preferred method!).  If you are using powdered or ground spices, add them in at this point as well.   Don’t add the honey yet or the essential oils if you’re using them since boiling destroys the properties.

Instant Pot users: Set the manual time to 5 minutes.  When the cooking time is over, I turn it off and just let the pressure come down naturally.

Stovetop users:  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer about 45 minutes.

The goal is to get the liquid to reduce by about half.

Next I let the liquid cool to lukewarm.  You will want to strain the liquid into your storage jar and discard the elderberries before adding the honey and essential oils.  I store it in a glass jar in the fridge.