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Dandelion Honey
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Dandelion Honey

Dandelion honey is a delicious vegan honey substitute made from wild dandelion petals.
Prep Time1 hour
Cook Time30 minutes
Additional Time10 minutes
Total Time1 hour 40 minutes
Author: Ashley Adamant

Ingredients

  • 2 cups water
  • 1 cup dandelion petals yellow parts only, fluffy, not packed
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice or 1/8 tsp. citric acid, not optional

Instructions

  • Start by harvesting dandelions from a clean, unsprayed area.
  • Break the flowers in half (left to right) to expose their center. Gently pluck out the yellow petals inside, leaving behind the green sepals around the outside. Measure your petals and scale the recipe accordingly. (For a basic recipe, you need about 1 cup of fluffy, unpacked petals from about 1 quart of whole dandelion flower heads.)
  • Add two cups of water to a saucepan and bring the water to a boil on the stove.  Once boiling, remove it from the heat.  Add the cleaned dandelion petals, and allow them to infuse for about 30 minutes (or longer, if you prefer.)
  • Strain the dandelion petals, saving the dandelion tea you've just made. (At this point, you should have about 1 1/2 cups of dandelion tea, or a bit more, depending on how efficient you are when you strain it.  You lose some to boiling the water, and then the petals absorb some.  It doesn't really matter, as you're going to cook it down and drive off more water shortly to get the right thickness or sugar concentration in the finished dandelion honey.)
  • Return the liquid to a saucepan on the stove and add sugar and lemon juice.
  • Turn the heat to high and boil hard until the mixture thickens and reaches "thread stage" on a candy thermometer, which is 230 F to 235 F (or 110 to 113 C).  This should take about 8 to 10 minutes, depending on your stove. 
  • An instant-read thermometer or candy thermometer is incredibly helpful here, as it's hard to judge the thickness of the mixture when it's hot.  The dandelion honey is going to thicken considerably when it cools. (If you don't have a candy thermometer, you can also just eyeball it.  In that case, it's better to undercook it than overcook it.  Bring it to a hard boil, stir until everything is dissolved, and allow it to cook for just a few minutes.  Let it cool completely, and check the consistency.  If it's too thin, bring it back to a boil again, then turn off the heat.  You can keep doing that repeatedly until it cools to the right consistency.  Be aware that it thickens as it cools, so just bring it to a boil and then turn it off each time.  If you overcook it, it'll turn to hard candy...if you undercook it, you can just heat it again.)
  • Once the dandelion honey reaches the proper temperature, remove it from the heat and pour into jars for storage.

Notes

Shelf Life

Dandelion honey is high in sugar, which is a natural preservative, but it doesn't have all the natural anti-microbial compounds that real honey contains. Real honey is shelf stable indefinitely, but dandelion honey is not.
Be sure to use lemon juice or citric acid, which will improve the flavor of your dandelion honey, but is also required for preservation. It's not optional.
Properly sealed jars, that are either water bath canned or canned using the European method (described below), will keep on the pantry shelf without refrigeration. Once opened, the dandelion honey should be refrigerated like any jam or preserve. If you only fill up half a jar, or don't seal the jar properly, consider it an "open jar" and refrigerate it for storage.
European Canning Method: If you sterilize the jars beforehand in boiling water, and fill the jars to within 1/4 inch of the top, the jars should "seal" on their own simply from the heat. In that case, they're effectively canned using the "European method" for canning, which uses a high sugar preserve and skips the water bath canning process. The same method is used in the US for canning maple syrup commercially.
Water Bath Canning: You can also choose to water bath can the dandelion honey, in which case, you'd process the jars for 10 minutes below 6,000 feet in elevation or 15 minutes above 6,000 feet in elevation. If you're not familiar with water bath canning, I'd suggest reading my guide to water bath canning before you start.

Traditional Apple Pectin Method

The other method for making dandelion honey which I described in the full article, uses green apples to thicken the "honey" and requires a bit less sugar. It's a little less sweet, and more like a soft set jelly. It won't cook the same as honey in baked goods, but it does work well in tea on and on top of biscuits.
For that variation, you'll need:
  • 3 cups chopped green apples (about 1 pound of whole apples)
  • 2 cups dandelion petals, cleaned yellow parts only
  • 4 cups water
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice (or a few stalks of chopped rhubarb for acidity)
  • Sugar, added later
Choose firm, tart green apples, like granny smith.  Don't peel or core them, just chop them whole as the peels and cores have the most pectin.
Bring the mixture to a boil on the stove (without the sugar), and then simmer for about 30 minutes.  Makes sure it's a gentle simmer, not a hard full rolling boil. 
Strain out the solids, and reserve the liquid.  Measure the liquid.
For every cup of strained dandelion tea with apple pectin, add 1 cup of sugar.  You'll probably have about 2 to 2 1/2 cups here, so you'll likely need roughly 2 to 2 1/2 cups sugar. 
Bring the sugar and dandelion tea mixture back to a boil and cook it until the mixture starts to gel.  (You can test this on a plate that's been placed in the freezer, or you can use an instant-read thermometer as "gel stage" for jelly is about 218 F for a softer set to 220 F for a slightly firmer set.)
This should yield roughly 3 cups of soft set jelly, or traditional Scandinavian Dandelion Honey.