Oleo Saccharum Recipe | An Easy Step-By-Step Guide on How to Make Oleo Saccharum

Oleo Saccharum is a sweet citrus syrup that is produced when sugar and citrus peels are allowed to infuse for a short period of time. The sugar pulls the essential oils out of the peel, where all of the rich citrus flavor hides.

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The most commonly used oleo saccharum is made using lemon peels, but any citrus can be used. You could even do a mix of lemon, grapefruit, and orange. Oooh. That’s gonna be next on my list.

What do you do with oleo saccharum though? Oleo saccharum can be used in many cocktails and mocktails as both a sweetener and a burst of flavor. You can also use it to amp up homemade lemonade, in hot tea, or to boost the flavor of baked goods like lemon poppy seed muffins or lemon pound cake.

If you’re looking to use it in your mixed drinks, simply use it in place of traditional simple syrup in a cocktail recipe. Orange oleo saccharum is amazing in an Old Fashioned and a French 75 with lemon oleo saccharum gives the classic champagne cocktail and even bigger citrus boost. I’ve yet to try this idea myself, but I’ve heard that lime oleo saccharum is divine in a mojito.

Now that you know what it is and what you use it for, let’s learn how to make oleo saccharum.

Step-By-Step Guide for How to Make Oleo Saccharum

Note: As with all of my simple syrup recipes, I prefer to make smaller batches of oleo saccharum. This recipe will yield about 2-3 ounces, which is great for 3 cocktail recipes. Feel free to double the recipe for a larger batch.

Step One:

Wash 3-4 small lemons, scrubbing lighting. Usually, we don’t wash citrus but since we’re gonna be extracting all the goodness out of the peels, we want to make sure we aren’t extracting any yuckies, too.

Step Two:

Peel the lemons with a vegetable peeler, leaving behind as much of the white pith as possible. Leaving too much pith on the peels will make the oleo saccharum bitter. I used a paring knife to cut off some of the remaining pith on the peels but if your vegetable peeler is real sharp and your lemons are extra firm, you probably won’t need to do this.

Step Three:

Add the peels to a small bowl or mason jar. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of white sugar over the peels and give it a quick stir or shake to coat the peels with the sugar.

Step 4:

Let the peels sit for several hours. After a couple of hours, you’ll notice some oil being drawn out. You can wait anywhere from 3 hours to overnight for this process. The lemon peels were start to look dry and crispy.

For this particular batch, I waited overnight. You can use a muddler or the back of a spoon to really ramp up the oil extraction, too.

Step 5:

At this point, strain the liquid into a lidded container. Don’t toss the peels yet!

Step 6:

Add 1/4 cup of boiling water to the container with the lemon peels. This will pull the remainder of the oils out and dissolve any remaining sugar.

Step 7:

Strain the peels out and discard. Add the hot water to the lidded container that contains the concentrated syrup. Allow it to cool before storing in the fridge.

Oleo saccharum will taste its best within the first week but it will last up to a month in the fridge. Add a splash of vodka to it to extend the shelf life even more.