Make this homemade vanilla paste and get more flavor with less mess
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Homemade vanilla paste is made with whole vanilla beans, honey, and pure vanilla extract. It’s the easiest way to get richer vanilla flavor in all your baked goods without the expense and mess of individual vanilla beans.
Seriously, if I could teach you how to make one thing that could give you better flavor in all of your baking, it’d be this diy vanilla paste.
Not only will you get more flavor, you’ll save money by making vanilla paste at home. With just a few minutes of time and stuff you already have (minus the vanilla beans), you’ll get a flavor paste you can use 1:1 in place of vanilla extract in cookies, cakes, breads, pastries and more.
So grab a paring knife and let’s scrape some vanilla beans.
Affiliate disclosure
bakingwithtradition.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a way for websites to earn advertising revenues by advertising and linking to recommended products. Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.
Homemade Vanilla Paste
What is vanilla paste?
Vanilla paste is a combination of the scraped insides of vanilla bean pods, vanilla extract, and a syrup to hold them together. Vanilla paste is an alternative to traditional vanilla extract, though it has more flavor since it uses both extract and whole vanilla beans.
What are alternatives to vanilla paste?
- Whole vanilla beans: whole vanilla beans have the most vanilla flavor since they are a whole ingredient. Still, vanilla beans are always one of the most expensive spices since they grow from one flower only in a couple tropical places like Madagascar, Tahiti, and Mexico. Additionally, splitting the beans and scraping them can be a messy process.
- Vanilla extract: most bakers use vanilla extract. Pure vanilla extract is made by a process of soaking and percolating beans in alcohol.
- Homemade vanilla extract: is made by only soaking the beans in alcohol, so it will have less flavor than a good quality pure vanilla extract.
- Vanilla powder: Vanilla powder is made by grinding down pure vanilla pods with a filler like maltodextrin. While it has a lot of flavor, some looking to lessen processed foods in their diets might choose to skip ingredients like maltodextrin.
Why make homemade vanilla paste at home?
- Flavor: homemade vanilla paste combines the flavor of both whole vanilla beans and vanilla extract. With this essential double vanilla flavor, all of your baked goods will have a much richer vanilla taste.
- Less mess: because you’ll break down the whole vanilla beans just once, you won’t have to deal with the hassle of getting tiny vanilla seeds all over you and your cutting board every time you want to bake. Vanilla paste is as easy to use as vanilla extract, but much much better tasting.
- Save money: homemade vanilla paste is about 1/2 the price of store-bought vanilla paste. If you have your own bees or a friend who does, you can save even more money.
- Better jars: having used commercial vanilla pastes, I can say that those tiny jars are awful when you get down to the bottom of the jar. Because they are so small, it’s impossible to scrape out the last bits. With a simple Mason jar, you can get every last drop from your homemade vanilla paste.
- Control over your ingredients: If you’ve ever been treated to Nielsen Massey vanilla, you know how lovely it is. Still, their vanilla paste uses a thickener called Gum Tragacanth. By using raw honey, we can skip the thickeners, meaning our homemade vanilla paste is also less processed.
Ingredients for homemade vanilla paste
- Vanilla beans: buy them in bulk for the best price. I’ve bought both these Native Vanilla beans as well as Fit n Clean and they both make great vanilla paste. The Fit n Clean is a little cheaper per pod, but you will still save money with the others.
- Vanilla extract: use only pure vanilla extract. Good vanilla extract should only contain vanilla beans, water, and alcohol. Run away from anything with added vanillin which is artificial vanilla. Artificial vanilla has a nasty chemical smell and taste, and while cheap, you deserve better.
- Honey: this helps bind the vanilla bean seeds and the extract together. Commercial vanilla paste will sometimes use sugar syrup to the same purpose. Sugar syrup is thinner than honey and requires a gum thickener for a good viscosity.
Equipment for making vanilla paste at home
- Paring knife and cutting board: to help you split and scrape the seeds from the vanilla pods.
- Food processor (optional but gives you the best result): this helps you get all of the last bits of vanilla out of the pods. You can skip this and simply blend the seeds with honey and vanilla extract with a fork if you don’t have a food processor.
- Fine mesh strainer: helps you strain out the finished vanilla paste from the chopped up vanilla pods. You won’t need this if you’re making this without a food processor.
Step by step process for making vanilla paste
- Split and scrape vanilla bean seeds from pods. Set aside the pods.
- Scrape the insides of the vanilla beans into a food processor.
- Chop the scraped pods into 1/2″ pieces, then throw into the food processor bowl with honey and vanilla extract.
- Blend everything together until the paste looks like a dark sludge.
- Press the vanilla paste through a fine mesh strainer with a large spoon.
- Fill small Mason jars with the fresh homemade vanilla paste.
How to use your homemade vanilla paste
The best thing about homemade vanilla paste is that you use it exactly as you would vanilla extract.
If a recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, simply measure out 1 teaspoon of paste.
Here are some recipes to use your paste in:
- Easy vanilla pastry cream
- Lemon buttermilk strawberry mini cakes
- Lemon blueberry snacking cake
- Raspberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake
- Whole wheat strawberry yogurt muffins
- Soft chocolate sandwich cookies
- Dark chocolate cutout cookies
- Dye free strawberry heart cookies
- Easter brownies
- Whole wheat butter cookies
Homemade Vanilla Paste
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup
Description
Vanilla paste gives you the extra vanilla flavor of vanilla beans without the hassle of using vanilla beans plus the added vanilla flavor of extract. Wrestle with the beans once, and you’ll have enough vanilla paste for a good long while.
Instructions
- Working on a cutting board, use a paring knife to slit down the center of a vanilla bean.
- Scrape out the seeds from the inside of the bean. Set the pod off to the side.
- Use a bench scraper or another knife to scrape off your knife into a food processor.
- Continue splitting and scraping out the seeds until you’ve gone through them all.
- Chop the pods into 1/2″ pieces and put them in the food processor as well.
- Pour the honey and vanilla extract into the food processor.
- Process everything for a full minute until the mixture is very sludgy and a murky brown.
- Scrape down the work bowl into a fine mesh strainer set over a glass measure or other bowl. Press down on the solids with a large spoon until you scrape out every last bit of vanilla goodness. See note below for what to do with the leftover pod waste.
- Transfer the paste to small lidded jars.
- Use your homemade vanilla paste in any recipe that calls for vanilla, swapping 1 tsp for 1 tsp.
Notes
- What to do with the leftover vanilla pod waste:
- Vanilla tea: Save the leftover pod waste in a small jar in the fridge. Add a little bit to your loose leaf tea for boosted vanilla flavor.
- Compost
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Additional Time: 0 hours
- Cook Time: 0 hours
- Category: Baking building blocks
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/2 teaspoon
- Calories: 21
- Sugar: .12
- Sodium: 24
- Fat: 1
- Saturated Fat: .72
- Carbohydrates: .62
- Fiber: 0
- Protein: .88
- Cholesterol: 3
Have you tried vanilla paste? What was your experience with it?
Hi! Have you heard of Nielsen Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract? ….so tasty you can lick the spoon it was on! (doesn’t taste like bourbon). It’s about $40.00 for an 8 oz. liquid bottle. NM makes vanilla paste also. The famous pastry chef, Gale Gand uses NM. I live near Waukegan IL where it is made, so I find it in the grocery store…..hope you like this note of more “Adventure with Quality Vanilla”… longtime follower of your wonderfully informative sewing/cooking blog, Lorraine
Oh Lorraine, I have spent so much money on Nielsen Massey in my life, LOL! It’s absolutely wonderful. I think I heard about it from Martha Stewart when I was a teenager. There’s nothing better, and I reckon adding it to the vanilla paste would make the ultimate vanilla paste!
Hi Elizabeth,
As a longtime “vanilla bean in a tall thin bottle of vodka” baker, your paste looks great.
I’m wondering how long it lasts? Do you refrigerate it? Can you process a half batch? Immersion blender? (Soo many questions!)
Thanks,
Melody
I’m thinking it has the same shelf life as any of the components given that there’s no water in it and we’re not doing anything to any of the ingredients besides whizzing them all up together. So, probably indefinitely, but more realistically, as long as it takes you to use up a batch, and no need for refrigeration. Yes, you can definitely make a smaller batch, and I do at times. An immersion blender will do just fine…I’d test it to make double sure, though my immersion blender died a couple weeks back, sadly.