Watermelon Syrup

Pretty and light pink color in bursting with refreshing summer flavor, this watermelon simple syrup is where it’s at. If you’re looking to add a little sweetness and summer time to your beverages and foods you’ll want to try this recipe out. It’s a perfect combination of sweet and light watermelon flavor that you’re sure to love.

What is Watermelon Simple Syrup?

Watermelon simple syrup is an easy to make watermelon sweetener that is a combination of equal parts chopped watermelon, sugar and water. This light pink syrup is a perfect addition if you want to create a summery sweet flavor in your drinks or desserts. It’s particularly nice to add into drinks as a sweetener and flavor addition because it will dissolve more easily than regular sugar.

This super versatile flavored simple syrup is so easy to make and it’s a perfect addition to foods and beverages if you’re looking to add a little summer sunshine. Like this recipe, other fruit flavored simple syrups are also easy to make just by adding in the type of fruit you want with sugar and water. Some popular flavors include pineapple syrup, banana syrup and pear syrup.

If you’re not convinced yet, check out these reasons why this recipe works so well:

• Sweet summertime. Watermelon is full of sweet summer flavor. It’s refreshing, fruity and the perfect summer treat.
• Only about 10 minutes. You can have this syrup ready in just about 10 minutes. It only takes three super simple ingredients, two of which you probably have in your kitchen. They are sugar and water.
• Customize it. You can change up the flavors pretty easily with the syrup to make it exactly what you want.

Equipment

• Saucepan
• Masher (optional)
• Knife
• Wooden Spoon (or any long handle spoon)
• Strainer
• Mason jar or Small Pyrex
• Measuring Cup

Ingredients

• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 cup Water
• 1 cup Chopped Watermelon

Instructions

Step one

Gather together everything that’s needed for the syrup including sugar, water, watermelon, measuring cups, saucepan, masher or wooden spoon, strainer and jar with lid.

Step two

Cut your watermelon into little pieces. Take a cup of it and dump it into the saucepan.

Step three

Take a cup of sugar and dump it into the saucepan.

Step four

Take a cup of water and add it to the saucepan.

Step Five

Now, you need to heat everything together. To do this, put the pot on your stove top at medium heat and simmer your mixture for around 10 minutes.

While it’s simmering, you’ll want to mash it with a masher or a wooden spoon and also stir frequently. This allows it to heat evenly and get all the juices out of the watermelon.

Step Six

After you’ve simmered your mixture for 10 minutes you’ll want to remove it from the heat. Then, pour it through a fine mesh strainer to remove any watermelon pieces.

Take the liquid that you put in the jar and cover it up with a lid. Pop it into the refrigerator to cool and thicken for around 2 hours.

How to Use

There are so many different uses for this syrup. Here are just a few you might think about trying:

• Refreshing drinks. Add a few ounces of the syrup to make refreshing drinks such as watermelon lemonade and watermelon soda.
• Add it to mocktails or cocktails. You can add this to cocktails like watermelon margaritas or daiquiris. Or you can make things like a watermelon mocktail.
• Flavored ice. You can take some chipped ice and pour this over to make an Italian ice.
• Cakes and other sweets. Drizzle this over your dessert food such as ice cream, cheesecake, cookies and other cakes.
• Yogurts, smoothies and oatmeal. You can add this into a wide variety of breakfast foods for a little watermelon sweetness. Drizzle it into yogurts, parfaits, oatmeal or add it to your smoothie.

Variations

There are quite a few ways to change this syrup up a little both in process, ingredients and flavors. Check out a few of these ideas:

• Forgo the heat. When you heat watermelon it does tend to change the flavor a little. You can make this syrup without any heat. There’s two methods
  • One where you puree the watermelon and strain the juice out and mix it with your sugar.
  • Two, is simply putting sugar all over watermelon cubes and letting it sit in the refrigerator for about 24 hours so that the juice comes out of the watermelon.
• Create some flavor variations. Watermelon flavor goes well with a lot of different flavors. Here are a few flavor combinations you might want to try:
  • Ginger. Add 1 teaspoon of ground ginger to your mixture.
  • Lime. Add 1 teaspoon of lime juice.
  • Make it spicy. Either add a few sliced jalapenos or a teaspoon of chili powder.
• Adjust the sweetness. Watermelon itself is already quite sweet. So, if you need to adjust the sweetness either by adding a little less sugar or using a different sweetener like honey or brown sugar you certainly can.
• Use watermelon juice. Instead of using fresh watermelon you can purchase watermelon juice from the store. Just make sure that it doesn’t have any added sugar.

Top Tips & Storage

Follow these top tips for a successful syrup and storage:

• Remove any seeds. It’s easiest to go ahead and use a seedless watermelon for this syrup. However, if the watermelon has seeds in it just make sure to remove them before getting started.
• Stir and simmer. When your heating the mixture you want to be sure that you stir it well throughout. You can also mash it a little to make sure you get all the juice from the watermelon. Additionally, you want to be extra certain that you don’t actually boil anything and then it just simmers. This permits burning and also stops it from getting too hot and changing the watermelon flavor too much.
• Store in the fridge. Keep this in an airtight container which is a Pyrex with a lid or a jar with a lid in the refrigerator for 2 to 4 weeks.
• Freeze it, if needed. If you won’t use all of the syrup in the 2 to 4 week time frame then you’ll need to freeze it. The best way to freeze it is to put it in an ice cube tray. Once it’s frozen, pop your cubes out and store them in a freezer bag.

Even More Fruity Simple Syrups

• Mango Simple Syrup
• Pineapple Syrup
• Pear Simple Syrup
• Cherry Simple Syrup

Recipe