Easy Cardamom Simple Syrup (3 Ingredients)

With just three ingredients, this Easy Cardamom Syrup recipe is perfect for coffee, tea, ice cream, mocktails, and anything else you decide to drizzle it on! It takes just 10 minutes to make, and can be prepared at any time of year.

Try it in my warm ginger milk or stir it into your favorite tea.

🍯 Ingredients

Cardamom Seeds: note that these are the little black seeds inside cardamom pods, NOT the pods them selves. You could also use ground cardamom to make cardamom drink syrup, but if your spice is too fine, that can make for a gritty syrup even after straining.

Sugar: you can really use any granulated sweetener that's a 1-to-1 swap for white cane sugar, but here I use an allulose & monk fruit blend that acts the same as cane sugar, but mkaing it possible to make cardamom syrup without lemon juice as a preservative.

Water: this helps to make this homemade cardamom cocktail syrup liquid enough to pour.

See recipe card for quantities.

📋 How to make cardamom syrup: step-by-step instructions

Step 1. An optional step for an even deeper cardamom flavor is to dry-toast the cardamom seeds over low heat for 3-5 minutes (images 1 and 2).

Step 2. Heat the water in a metal-bottom pan until just simmering.

Step 3. Meanwhile, grind your cardamom seeds with a mortar and mestle or lightly pulse them in a spice grinder, until coarsely ground but not nearly as fine as ground cardamom from the store (images 4 and 3).

Step 4. Then once your water is simmering, pour in your sweetener and stir everything together until the sweetener has dissolved (image 5), and bring everything back to a low boil (image 6).

Step 5. Then add the cardamom seeds (image 7) and heat the cardamom syrup mixture on low for 10 minutes (set a timer), never letting it get above a simmer, stirring occasionally (image 8).

Step 6. When your timer goes off, remove the mixture from the heat and let it sit on a cool burner for 15-20 more minutes (to infuse further) (image 9).

Step 7. Then strain the mixture (image 10) and preserve your cardamom syrup in a closed container in the fridge for up to 10 days or in the freezer for up to 6 months.

🧂 Substitutions and variations

Sweetener: while you can use almost any granulated sweetener in this recipe, I've made it in years past with regular sugar and more recently with allulose-monk fruit sweetener, a sugar-free FDA-approved sweetener that's a direct swap for sugar. But other great sweetener options include honey, brown sugar, coconut sugar, or even erythritol for a cardamom syrup without sugar.

• Cardamom Ginger Syrup - to make an even brighter syrup, try adding ½ tablespoon of fresh minced ginger to the mixture once you've added the crushed seeds. When you filter out the seeds it will also filter out the ginger, but the sharp freshness will remain.
• Cardamom Vanilla Syrup - you can create a more complex cardamom syrup for drinks by adding either one whole split vanilla pod, the vanilla seeds from one pod, or ¼ teaspoon vanilla paste to the infusion when you take it off the heat to steep. Alternately, adding ½ teaspoon high-quality vanilla extract right after filtering out the seeds would make a delicious vanilla cardamom syrup.
• Cardamom Cream - mix equal parts heavy cream and cardamom syrup for a buttery cardamom milk syrup that stays good in the fridge for up to 5 days if kept airtight. I've only tried this with high quality organic dairy cream, and it tastes even better when you've made the cardamom syrup with honey or other flavors.

See the basil version of this recipe on my website!

⭐ Storage and freezing

Fresh cardamom simple syrup will stay good in the fridge for up to 7 days, but will stay good frozen for 6+ months without losing any flavor (if stored in an air-tight bottle). For low histamine readers, freezer storage is recommended after a few hours cooling air-tight in the fridge.

🙋🏻‍♂️ Frequently asked questions

😋 Other easy simple syrups

❓ Cardamom syrup uses

• Use it to soak a freshly-made cake
• Flavor your favorite mousse, custard, or pudding
• Make your own low histamine chai or cardamom milk
• Blend some into cream that you drizzle onto fruit salad
• Drizzle it with your favorite berries onto some vanilla flax pudding
• Thin some out with selzer water to create a homemade cardamom soda
• Mix one teaspoon of this and one teaspoon of ginger syrup to use this cardamom syrup for latte or tea sweetening

Have you tried this recipe?

If you like the recipe, please leave a 5-star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the recipe card, or even a comment! I love to hear how your recipes turned out, and your feedback can help other readers! Also join us on Instagram, Facebook & Pinterest.

📖 Recipe

Easy Cardamom Simple Syrup (3 Ingredients)

How to make homemade cardamom syrup with ground cardamom or cardamom seeds! With just 3 ingredients & 3 minutes, you can use it to add sweetness to anything.

5 from 1 vote

Print Pin Rate

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: Indian

Servings: 1 ⅓ cup

Author: Max

Equipment

• ▢
  mortar and pestle

Ingredients

• ▢ 1 Cup sugar alt. granulated sweetener
• ▢ ¾ Cup water
• ▢ 1 ½ Tablespoons cardamom seeds

Instructions

• An optional step for an even deeper cardamom flavor is to dry-toast the cardamom seeds over low heat for 3-5 minutes.
• Heat the water in a metal-bottom pan until just simmering.
• Meanwhile, grind your cardamom seeds with a mortar and mestle or lightly pulse them in a spice grinder, until coarsely ground but not nearly as fine as ground cardamom from the store.
• Then once your water is simmering, pour in your sweetener and stir everything together until the sweetener has dissolved, and bring everything back to a low boil, then add the cardamom seeds.
• Heat the cardamom syrup mixture on low for 10 minutes (set a timer), never letting it get above a simmer, stirring occasionally.
• When your timer goes off, remove the mixture from the heat and let it sit on a cool burner for 15-20 more minutes (to infuse further).
• Then strain the mixture and preserve your cardamom syrup in a closed container in the fridge for up to 10 days or in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Notes

Can I use ground cardamom?: for this recipe I used whole cardamom seeds (NOT pods), but you can theoretically use 2 teaspoons of ground cardamom instead, though I haven't tried it myself. Just note that you'll want to very carefully strain the syrup after infusion, to avoid it being gritty from super tiny bits of cardamom.

Corn Allergies: If you have any issues with corn, make sure to buy your allulose from a company which specifically doesn't source their allulose from corn, as much allulose is manufactured from corn. However it's also found in small amounts in figs, raisins, wheat, maple syrup and molasses.

At roughly five times the price of white sugar, allulose can be a hard sell. But for those who choose to splurge for it, allulose has none of the inflammatory effects, doesn't cause tooth decay, has no calories, and has no effect on insulin.

No Mortar and Pestle?: if you don't have a mortar and pestle, you can also throw the seeds into a spice grinder and grind it for 30 seconds in 3-second intervals. This will get a pretty coarse grind, but it gets the job done in terms of flavoring the cardamom syrup.

Tried this Recipe? Tag me Today!Mention @LowHistamineEats or tag #lowhistamineeats!