Nettle Cordial makes a wonderfully refreshing Springtime drink. When friends put it to the taste test, pretty much everyone agreed that they couldn’t think of a single taste that this Nettle Cordial Recipe resembled.
There is so much that you can do with Nettles, and this is a great way to get those more reserved family members and friends to sample wild food.
- 200g freshly picked nettle tops
- 1kg granulated sugar
- 40g citric acid
- 500ml boiling water
- Sterile glass bottles with tops, either screw or cork
Step 1
Collect, wash and spin dry in a salad spinner 200g of nettle tops.
Step 2
Weigh out 1kg of granulated sugar
Step 3
Measure out 40g of citric acid. Citric acid can often be found in health shops or home brewing shops.
Step 4
Add the granulated sugar, citric acid and water to a large saucepan, and heat the mixture until it reaches 60 degrees C, then remove from the heat.
Step 5
Now add the Nettle leaves, and stir well so that they get covered with the liquid, then cover and leave for a week. Make sure that you stir your Nettle Cordial mixture daily.
Step 6
After a week is up, sterilise your bottles, then strain the liquid through a sieve or colander and bottle.
My batch lasted about 4 weeks. After opening a bottle, make sure that you refrigerate your Nettle Cordial.
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{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a wonderful recipe, thank you so much for sharing.
Just one question: Do you have to heat up the nettle mixture again before filling it into the sterilised bottles? If not, will it not go on fermenting and eventually blast the bottles??
Great question Torwen. No you don’t need to reheat the mixture, and it doesn’t keep on fermenting. In fact not a lot of fermentation happens anyway due to the high sugar content. The higher sugar concentration acts as a preservative effecting any potential fermentation in a negative way.
I can’t wait to have a crack at this recipe; it sounds great! I have one concern though…don’t you need to blanch the nettles first to rid them of the fine hairs that act as stings? Other recipes involving nettles seem to suggest doing this before using them.
Dingus, no need to blanch the nettles first. Just putting them in the boiled sugar syrup is enough to knock out the sting.
did the nettle infusion,didnt taste good but hopefully did me good,so i will make some nettle cordial and that will taste better due to the sugar i would think, thanks for this site as i enjoy forraging ,even though i dont really know what i am doing,Will
Hi there, just wondered if citric acid could possibly be replaced by lemon or lime juice? Thanks a lot
Jolanta I haven’t tried lemon or lime juice and can’t see why it wouldn’t work. You might need to search online to figure out the ratios you’d need to replace the 40g of citric acid.
i have just started having green juices;and nettles has been one of the ingrediants; just pick nettles and shove in the juicer; excellent way to start the day;!
I have just started a batch of nettle cordial, you didn’t mention removing stems. I found some of mine looked tough so I discarded those. I know that when making elderflower cordial it is good to remove as much green stem as possible because the stems can be bitter.
Nicci – If you’re just picking the tops like I mention in the recipe, then you don’t have to worry about ‘tough’ stems. They don’t add bitterness in any way that I have found. Nettle isn’t elder.
Thanks so much for sharing this jem! I’ve just bottled my batch and its delicious, it won’t last long!
just one question, you made half a litre of cordial, and you say its going to last you 4 weeks,, do you dilute it??
Dan – Yes you dilute the cordial just like a regular squash or cordial.
I’ve have just put my nettle mixture to sit for the week and I can’t wait – really great idea for a recipe – thank you so much.
I also want to dry out some nettles to make tea with…do I only want the leaves or is it ok to keep the stalks?
Kate – I prefer to use the young Nettle tops and dry those. However I know others who use most of the whole plant for their teas only (not for eating). The choice is yours.
hi guys,
you’ll need 450ml lemon juice to equate to the 40g citric aci but you would need to reduce the water to 90ml to allow for this. or your cordial will not be thick enough
heres my calculation –
2 tbsp lemon juice = 2.5 ml citric acid (where 1g = 1ml)
40 divided by 15 = approx 15
therefore you need 30 tbsp of lemon juice (where 1 tbsp = 15ml)
you’ll need 450ml of lemon juice
the recipe suggests 40g citric acid and 500ml water = 540ml fluid
therefore using 450ml lemon juice, you’ll only need 90ml water.
your thoughts are appreciated cos although this seems logical i am making it tomorrow so havent tested the method!
Instead of citric acid can i use pure lemon juice , if not what other can i subsitute?
Harvey: Using pure lemon juice is fine, but don’t aks me the quantities as I do not know.
i have noticed that in some cordial recipes citric acid added and in others not, is this just for taste purposes or for its preservative value?
i followed this recipe, with a few tweaks. i don’t have access to black currant leaves, so i subbed fresh strawberry guavas. instead of citric acid i used 40g of fresh squeezed lemon juice. don’t follow the above recommendation for lemon juice quantities, that’s way off and will make your cordial far too sour.
my strawberry guava x nettle cordial was such a success i have started a second creation, this one strawberry and basil! yum! thanks so much for the recipe