Vegan Honey Simple Recipe (2024)

Vegan Honey is easy to make with a few simple ingredients. It’s just as sweet and just as pretty as the real thing. Goes great on toast, in tea, or in recipes. It’s also inexpensive, with the ingredients costing just a dollar or two. Make it as simple in flavor as you like or add optional ingredients for even more complexity.

Why Use Vegan Honey?

Vegans don’t use honey because it’s an animal product. Additionally, this vegan honey is quite inexpensive. It’s delicious and can be used the same way as real honey. So win-win.

How to Make Vegan Honey

Bees have been around for about 30 million years. They’re fascinating animals with complex social structures. Worker bees collect nectar from flowers to make honey that will feed themselves and the young larva in the hive. Bees must collect 10 pounds of nectar to make a pound of honey. The nectar is stored in one of the bees’ two stomachs, regurgitated, and fanned to dehydrate it and make honey.

The nectar can be from a variety of sources and honey made with one blend of nectar may taste slightly different from honey made with another.

Complex Flavor

In this recipe for vegan honey, I’ve used a few different ingredients to get that same complexity of flavor that would be like what a bee might create after visiting various flowers for nectar.

The method is simple: just putting all the ingredients together and then simmering until reduced and thickened.

Use a vegetable peeler to get thin slices of citrus peel. A combination of orange, lemon, and grapefruit peel works really well. Leave the skins on the apples and chop them coarsely.

Ingredients in Vegan Honey

The ingredients in vegan honey are available at most local groceries and a few optional ingredients can even be sourced from your own yard.

Apples and Apple Juice: Apples and apple juice add their sweet tartness. This recipe doesn’t use a lot of apple juice to avoid vegan honey that tastes like apple syrup. Those are delicious, too, but I wanted something more subtle and like actual honey.
Chamomile Tea: Layering in the flavors starts with chamomile tea. Chamomile is sweet and meadowy and is a flower that bees would use for nectar.
Clover Tea: Here’s another ingredient that just makes you think of honey. It adds more of the sweetish, meadowy flavor. If you don’t have clover tea, just use a bit more chamomile. It’s all good.
Citrus Peel: Real honey has a slight tang to it. Citrus does that here without being overwhelming.
White Granulated Sugar or Coconut Sugar: This is the main ingredient that makes it sweet.
Light Corn Syrup: Corn syrup will prevent the sugar in the honey from crystallizing too much once it sits for a while.

Optional Ingredients:

These add more subtle layers of flavor. Use them if you have them and want to use them but just omit them if you don’t.
Buckwheat Groats: This is an optional ingredient. It adds a little bit of a subtle grassy taste.
Lavender: A small amount of culinary lavender can add a nice floral note. I used about 1/2 teaspoon but if you really like lavender add a tiny bit more.
Clover Blossoms: Again, optional. If you have access to clean, organic clover blossoms, toss a few in for an additional layer of flavor.
Pine Needles: I added a few pine needles to my mixture. Not a lot but enough to add just a little complexity and another layer of flavor. If you can find pine needles that you know are ok to use in food (no pesticides, etc) then add a few. If not, just omit it.
Orange Blossom Water: This adds a hint of floral to the vegan honey. I added about 1/2 teaspoon right at the end. It’s not overwhelming.

See Also

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It’s so simple. Steep the tea first, then add most of the remaining ingredients, and then simmer until the mixture has reached the desired consistency. It can take between 30 and 40 minutes. It’s pretty and smells delicious. Add the orange blossom water, if using, right at the end of cooking.

Strain the Cooked and Cooled Mixture

The mixture will be extremely hot. Allow it to cool for at least several minutes. Them strain the cooked and somewhat cooled mixture through a wire mesh strainer, pressing to squeeze out as much as possible.

This Vegan Honey May Crystallize

Many years ago, before I was vegan, I got raw honey from a local beekeeper. Raw honey is not the same as the very liquid product found in the little bears. Raw honey is thick and may become thicker and even crystalize over time. This batch of vegan honey that I left at room temperature for several days did get really thick and crystallize. It was exactly like the raw honey I remember. I could have been fooled into believing this vegan honey was the real thing. I like it when it’s like that … it’s almost the texture of a fine sugar scrub but gooey. But if you don’t like it that way (try it, you might like it!), just pop it in the microwave for thirty seconds and it loosens right up into a gooey liquid. It doesn’t need to get hot, just slightly warm.

How to Store Vegan Honey

This keeps really well for the same reasons real honey does. It’s mainly sugar which isn’t hospitable to mold or bacteria. Store this in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to several weeks.

Is Vegan Honey Medicinal?

One of the things touted about real honey is that it’s medicinal and can even be used on wounds to heal them. That’s true. Real honey on a scrap or burn will help it heal faster … for the same reasons it doesn’t go bad on the counter. It’s inhospitable to germs. Harmful bacteria that may make a wound heal more slowly aren’t going to live in an environment full of sugar. This vegan honey would have many of the same mild antimicrobial properties as real honey, and for the same reasons. I do, however, suggest antibiotic ointment on wounds and this vegan honey on toast!

Vegan Honey Makes a Great Gift!

Vegan honey makes a great gift for friends and family, whether they’re vegan or plant-based or not. Just package the vegan honey in a small glass jar and wrap it with a pretty ribbon or bow.

Making Larger Batches of Vegan Honey

If you need more of this delicious condiment, then just double or triple the recipe. Simmer a larger batch for as long as needed to achieve the desired consistency.