Save Your Strawberry Tops for This Sweet Syrup You Can Drizzle on Everything

With food prices rising, it’s becoming more essential to cut down on food waste and discover ways to use your homegrown garden produce—meaning it’s time to stop discarding your strawberry tops. Instead, save them up so you can create your very own homemade strawberry syrup. And yes, you can even use the leaves.

Strawberry syrup is incredibly easy to make, and only requires two ingredients: strawberry tops and sugar. The most important part is that your strawberry tops still have a bit of fruit on them—this is what infuses your simple syrup with that delicious fruity flavor.

How to Make Strawberry Syrup

Boil your strawberry tops in a pot of water until it turns a dark red color. Then, remove the strawberry tops—at this point, they’re ready to be composted. 

Once you’ve set aside your strawberry tops, it’s time to add some sugar. Depending on how sweet and thick you want your syrup, you can opt for a 2:1 water-sugar ratio, a 1:1 ratio, or even put in twice as much sugar as you do water (this will lead to a very thick, maple-syrup-like consistency). The less sugar you use, the thinner your syrup will be: This makes it ideal for cocktails, coffee drinks, or for using in baked goods. Thicker syrups add a homemade element strawberry pancakes or waffles, or as a spread on toast.

Stir the mixture until the sugar has dissolved, and allow it to simmer and reduce. Once it’s thickened up to a syrupy consistency, remove it from the heat, cover the pot, and let it cool. As soon as it’s cooled, store it in an airtight container in the fridge. Don’t forget to strain it, too—this filters out any remaining seeds or leaves.

Customizing Your Strawberry Syrup

To add extra flavor into your homemade strawberry syrup, you can also boil fresh herbs alongside the strawberry tops. Mint, lavender, or basil all enhance strawberries’ natural flavor and balances out their sweetness. This also makes the syrup a tasty option for herbaceous cocktails.

You can also add a bit of honey to add extra flavor; certain types of honey, like orange blossom or clover, will brings more complexity to your simple syrup. 

Adding a little bit of fruit juice—like lemon, lime, or orange—can also give it more tartness and make it more balanced, though you can always save these kinds of additions for particular recipes if you so desire.