How to Make Simple Syrup
Make simple syrup from equal parts sugar and water. Heat until clear, cool, jar, and refrigerate for up to a month, then move on to rich 2:1 syrup and flavored syrups.
You will end up with about 1 1/2 cups of simple syrup, which is sugar dissolved in an equal measure of water, in a jar that keeps in the refrigerator for up to a month.
Use it wherever granulated sugar is slow to dissolve. Stirred into a cold drink, sugar grains sink to the bottom before they dissolve. Simple syrup mixes in at once, because the sugar is already in solution. That covers cocktails, iced coffee, iced tea, and lemonade. It is also brushed onto cake layers to keep them moist.
Granulated white sugar Water (filtered if your tap has a strong taste) A measuring cup A small saucepan A spoon or spatula for stirring A clean glass jar or bottle with a lid
Measure equal parts sugar and water
Use regular granulated white sugar, not powdered (confectioners') sugar. The Sugar Association notes that commercial powdered sugar is mixed with about 3% cornstarch to prevent caking. Cornstarch does not dissolve the way sugar does, so the syrup will not come out clear. The standard ratio is one part sugar to one part water by volume. Measure 1 cup of each, which makes about 1 1/2 cups (12 fluid ounces) of syrup. That is 24 tablespoons, so at 1 tablespoon per drink the batch sweetens 24 drinks. For a smaller batch, use 1/2 cup of each. For a larger one, scale both up by the same amount. Some recipes give the 1:1 ratio by weight. In USDA's food data, a cup of granulated sugar weighs 200 g and a cup of water 237 g, so equal cups make a slightly less sweet syrup than equal weights. Measure the way your recipe states.
Combine sugar and water in a saucepan
Pour the water into a small saucepan first, then add the sugar on top. Starting with water on the bottom prevents sugar from sitting on the hot metal and scorching before it has liquid to dissolve into. Use filtered water if your tap water has a strong chlorine or mineral taste. Simple syrup has exactly two ingredients, so any off-flavors in the water come through clearly in the finished product.
Heat on medium-low and stir until dissolved
Place the saucepan over medium-low heat and stir frequently with a spoon or spatula. The sugar will dissolve as the water warms up. You do not need a rolling boil. An uncovered boil works against you, because water leaves as steam and the syrup ends up thicker and sweeter than the ratio you measured. A gentle simmer with the lid on is different, since the water cannot escape, and FAQ 3 below explains why the rich version is made that way. The syrup is done when the liquid turns from cloudy and grainy to completely clear. Once the liquid is clear and there are no visible crystals in the syrup or on the sides of the pan, remove the pan from the heat.
Heads up: Look at the sides of the pan before you take it off the heat. Push any sugar clinging above the liquid back in with the spoon and stir until it dissolves, so that all the sugar you measured ends up in the syrup and no grains go into the jar.
Let it cool to room temperature
Leave the syrup in the pan with the lid off until the pan is cool to the touch, then transfer it. Hot syrup poured into a cold glass jar can crack the glass. If you are in a hurry, set the saucepan in a shallow ice bath in the sink and stir the syrup now and then until the pan feels cool.
Transfer to a clean glass jar or bottle
Wash the jar or bottle and its lid in hot, soapy water, rinse them well, and let them dry before you fill them. Then pour in the cooled syrup and close the lid tightly. A mason jar or a swing-top bottle works. A clean glass jar with a lid is what University of Maine Cooperative Extension's syrup method calls for.
Refrigerate and use within a month
Store the syrup in the refrigerator and use it within a month. That is the storage advice on the University of Maine Cooperative Extension page linked in step 5, for simple syrup plain or flavored. Write the date on the jar. Throw the syrup out if it turns cloudy, grows mold on the surface or around the lid, smells off, or fizzes when you open the jar. Cloudiness is the first sign. In a refrigerator test by the drinks writer Camper English, a 1:1 syrup turned cloudy after 1 month, and he describes the cloudiness as the stage that comes before mold. Crystals at the bottom of the jar are not spoilage. They are sugar coming back out of solution. The more concentrated the syrup, the more likely they are, so they show up in rich syrup (FAQ 3 below) and in syrup that boiled down in an open pan (step 3). Reheat the syrup with a splash of water and stir until the crystals dissolve.
If grains of sugar are still visible, put the pan back on the heat and stir until the liquid is clear (step 3). If the syrup came out thicker and sweeter than you expected, it boiled in an open pan and lost water, so stir in a little water, a tablespoon at a time. If crystals form in the jar, reheat the syrup with a splash of water (step 6). If it turns cloudy, throw it out and make a fresh batch. From here, make a flavored batch (FAQ 5 below) or a rich one that keeps longer (FAQ 3 below). If you meal prep on weekends, make the week's syrup in the same session.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
Yes. Put equal parts sugar and water in a jar, close the lid, and shake until no crystals are left on the bottom. If grains settle, let the jar stand, then shake again until no grains are left on the bottom. It works because a 1:1 syrup is far below the limit of what water holds. In USDA's food data, a cup of sugar weighs 200 g and a cup of water 237 g, which is about 0.84 g of sugar for each gram of water. Water at room temperature dissolves about 2 g of sugar per gram, going by the solubility PubChem lists for sucrose. The no-heat method also skips the cooling wait in step 4.
Yes. Use the same method and the same 1:1 ratio, and pack the brown sugar lightly into the measuring cup so that it holds a full measure. The Sugar Association says brown sugar can replace white sugar in an equal amount and adds a molasses flavor, and that dark brown sugar has a deeper color and a stronger molasses flavor than light brown. The syrup comes out amber to brown, so it darkens a pale drink.
Rich simple syrup uses 2 parts sugar to 1 part water by volume. It is thicker and sweeter, so you use less of it for the same sweetening and add less water to the drink. Two cups of sugar and 1 cup of water make about 2 cups of rich syrup. That puts 1 cup of sugar in each cup of syrup, against two-thirds of a cup in standard syrup, so when you swap rich for standard in a recipe, use two-thirds of the amount called for. Do not make it the step 3 way, because a syrup this concentrated is prone to crystallizing. America's Test Kitchen tested this with 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water. Brought to a boil and taken off the heat, the syrup grew crystals within 24 hours. Simmered, covered, for 10 minutes, it inverted enough of the sugar to stop crystals forming, without changing the flavor, and the test kitchen says that syrup can be refrigerated for at least 2 weeks without crystallizing. Inverting means splitting some of the sugar into glucose and fructose, which get in the way of crystals. So make it their way. Bring the sugar and water to a simmer in a saucepan, put the lid on, simmer for 10 minutes, and let the syrup cool completely. The lid is the part that matters. It keeps the water in the pan, so you get the inversion without concentrating the syrup past the ratio you set. Rich syrup also keeps longer. In the Camper English test linked in step 6, the 2:1 syrup lasted 6 months in the refrigerator before it turned cloudy, against 1 month for the 1:1. That was one test, so write the date on the jar and use the discard signs in step 6.
Yes. Freeze it in a rigid plastic container, or in a silicone ice cube tray, and move the cubes to a freezer bag once they are firm. Leave room at the top of a container, because the syrup expands as it freezes. Do not use an ordinary glass jar. The National Center for Home Food Preservation says regular glass jars break easily at freezer temperatures, and that the glass to use is a wide-mouth jar made for both freezing and canning. Sugar lowers the freezing point of water, so syrup freezes softer than ice, and rich syrup softer than standard. If the cubes do not set firm, freeze the syrup in a container instead. USDA says food stored constantly at 0°F will always be safe and that only its quality suffers over time. We could not find a tested storage time for frozen syrup, so write the date on the container. Thaw it in the refrigerator, keep it there, and apply the discard signs in step 6.
Add the flavoring once the sugar has dissolved, take the pan off the heat, let it steep, and strain. The University of Maine Cooperative Extension method linked in step 5 adds 1 to 2 cups of flavoring, such as berries, rhubarb, peaches, herbs, or peppers, to a syrup made from 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water, turns off the heat, and steeps it for 5 minutes. University of Illinois Extension steeps herbs such as lavender for 30 to 60 minutes. Start at 5 minutes, taste the syrup, and keep steeping until the flavor is as strong as you want. Strain it through a mesh strainer into a clean jar. The same page's storage advice covers flavored syrup too, which is to refrigerate it and use it within a month.
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