Made with fresh summer berries, you’re going to love this delicious Blackberry Syrup. This is a delightful homemade treat for pancakes, waffles, baked goods, drinks, and more. You can freeze or can this easy blackberry syrup recipe.
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Blackberries are the dandelions of Washington. They grow wild everywhere and are free for the picking. When you want to savor that delicious taste longer than the short season lasts, homemade blackberry syrup is the way to go!
Let me teach you how to make this incredibly fresh syrup. You can keep it in the fridge, freeze some for later, or even can it. You’ve got options. Go get some berries and let’s do this.
Homemade syrup is great on whole wheat pancakes, sour cream pancakes, or oat milk pancakes, incorporating into Mojito Mocktails or a Ginger Beer Mocktail, or drizzled over cold start Instant Pot yogurt.
If you have leftover fresh blackberries, use them to make Blackberry Freezer Jam, Blackberry Simple Syrup, Gluten-Free Blackberry Crisp, or Blackberry and Apple Crumble.
HOW DO YOU MAKE Blackberry SYRUP FROM SCRATCH?
I’ll walk you through it in photos, but you’ll find a printable and detailed recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Rinse the berries and add them to a heavy-bottomed pan (I use my cast iron dutch oven). Now we’re going to cook them down over medium heat and gently mush them as they heat up.
Once the berries are hot and steaming, use an immersion blender to puree everything. If you don’t have an immersion blender, no worries. You can use a blender; just make sure you remove the middle part of the lid to allow the steam to escape and blend in batches.
Now, you’ll place a fine-mesh strainer over a clean bowl and pour the berries into the strainer. You may need to “push” the sauce through with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon to get every last drop. Then add the filtered sauce back to the pan, add the sugar and (optional) lemon juice, and bring to a gentle boil for 5-10 minutes or until reduced by one-third. Cool and store!
But maybe you want to can it too? No problem! You’ll find canning instructions in the printable recipe card below. And here is what that process looks like.
And if you have a plethora of leftover blackberries, try your hand at Blackberry Simple Syrup, Blackberry Freezer Jam, or make Homemade Gluten-Free Blackberry Crisp.
Canning Blackberry Syrup Equipment List
Check out this in-depth post for a complete list of canning supplies.
- Blackberries (fresh or frozen)
- A heavy-bottomed pot for the fruit
- Large bowl
- Immersion blender or blender
- Metal sieve
- Canner: simple water bath canner, a pressure canner (which can double as a water bath canner), or even a huge stockpot with a rack in the bottom.
- Spatula
- Canning tongs/jar lifter
- Jars – I would use 8 oz jam size
- Lids and rings
- Widemouth funnel
- Sugar
- Clean washcloths and at least one thick clean towel.
Pro Tips/Recipe Notes
- You can use frozen blackberries (related: How to Freeze Blackberries). Let them heat up in the pot with 1 cup water. You’ll need to cook everything a bit longer to reduce the liquid that is produced as they defrost.
- You can reduce or increase the sugar depending on your preferences and the sweetness of the berries. I recommend starting with 1/4 cup and tasting as you go.
- Recipe makes five 8oz jam jars.
- If you don’t have an immersion blender, carefully transfer in batches to a regular blender. Leave the center component of the lid off to allow the steam to escape.
- You can leave the seeds in if you’d like.
Blackberry Syrup {Canning Blackberry Syrup}
Ingredients
- 12 cups fresh or frozen blackberries {to yield ~5 cups juice}
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tbsp lemon juice {optional}
Instructions
- Combine 1/4 cup water and berries in a heavy-bottomed pot. Cook down over medium heat until the berries are very soft and steaming.1/4 cup water, 12 cups fresh or frozen blackberries
- When hot, use an immersion blender in the pot to blend the berries.
- Ladle hot berry sauce into a metal sieve placed over a bowl.
- Use a spatula to work the sauce around until all that is left in the sieve is the seeds. Return the now seedless sauce to the cooking pot.
- Mix sugar and (optional) lemon juice into the sauce, cook on medium-high, stirring often until the syrup has reduced by 1/3 (about 5-10 minutes).2 cups sugar, 2 tbsp lemon juice
- If you're not canning the syrup, simply transfer it to small containers. Refrigerate and use within a month, or freeze for six months.
How to Can Blackberry Syrup
- Prepare your water bath canner by filling it with water. You just need to have enough water to cover the jars by 2 inches once the water is boiling.
- Set the canner on the stove. Turn the burner to high.
- Wash and sanitize your jars. You’ll want to keep them warm to avoid having them crack when placed in the canner. You can fill them with hot water, or place them on a tray in the oven at 170 degrees F.
- Wash your lids and set aside in a clean bowl.
- Ladle in the warm syrup into jars, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. Remove any bubbles from the jar (I use a chopstick).
- Use a wet clean rag and wipe the rim of the jars to make sure it is free of any food.
- Place a clean lid on the jar. Add a ring, and tighten to fingertip tight.
- Using canning tongs, place jars in the boiling water. Put the lid on the canner, and once the water is back to a rolling boil, process for 10 minutes.
- When the 10 minutes is up, remove the canner from the heat, and allow it to sit for 5 minutes.
- Using the canning tongs, remove the jars and place them on a thick towel in a place where they won't be disturbed for 12 hours.
- After 12 hours, check the seal on the jars by pressing down in the center of the lid. If there is any give, either refrigerate and use those jars in the next month or reprocess.
- Store in a cool dark place for 9-12 months.
Notes
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i have already juiced my blackberries. any idea how many cups of juice 12 cups berries would produce?
It depends on the ripeness of the blackberries, but it will probably lead 5-6 cups. The recipe makes 5 half-pints (5, 8 oz jars) after it has been reduced in volume a bit.
I wanted to try this recipe out so I cut it in half, just enough to put in the frig for waffles or angel food cake.
It was sooo good. We have tons of blackberries, so many I’ve been having to freeze them every day to keep up.
I made blackberry jelly with the surejell and it’s so sweet. I love the taste of the syrup so this morning I got more berries out and wanted to try cooking them longer than the syrup to see if it would set up as jelly. Could you tell me exactly how much longer I should cook it down so it will set up?
About 15-20 minutes at a low boil should do the trick! The hard part is you won’t know it is “set” until it starts to cool.
Freezing blackberries is one of my favorite things. They’re like little bits of summer during the gloomy winter.
Blackberries are coming into season in the south. I love to make this with xylitol to make it keto and have it over lemon pound cake.
I’m so jealous they’re already ripening! We still have 2(ish) months to go.
Lemon pound cake is THE best!
How much syrup does this render when you use 12 cups fresh fruit?!
Hi Kortnie, the recipe states: “Recipes makes 4-6 jelly jars depending on how much sugar you add and how much you choose to cook it down.”
Jelly jars are 8 oz each. Hope this helps!
This would bring our “breakfast for dinner” night to a whole new level, thanks!
I have a ton of blacberries in the freezer. I will be making jars of this for Christmas presents! Thanks for posting.
Would this work for blueberries as well? I have a ton of frozen ones I would like to use up. No one likes blueberry jam and I am not a great pie or pastry baker.
I’m sure it would. Blueberry skins are annoying but are less annoying than blackberry seeds.
This whole wheat blueberry muffin recipe I make uses frozen blueberries and the muffins freeze really well. https://www.sustainablecooks.com/finally-amazingly-delicious-whole-wheat-blueberry-muffins/
Our local grocery had blackberries on sale, so I bought a TON and made jam and your syrup. DH is crazy for anything blackberry. He’s been eating Smucker’s with Splenda, so I’m trying to get him off the chemical crap. This stuff is the bomb. I subbed agave because it’s low glycemic and he loves the stuff, and it turned out great. I also LOVE the idea of the rings in the bottom of the stock pot rather than dragging out the big canning pot.
I’m glad google led me to your blog-we just picked a ton of blackberries by the Puyallup river, and this syrup looks perfect! We don’t do nearly as much sugar either, so I was surprised so many recipes call for tons of sugar and other random things. Simple and less sugary. Suhweeet. ;o)
That looks great, I’ll have to try it.