Homemade Lemon Sugar is the easy hack for getting more lemon flavor

Homemade lemon sugar has just 2 ingredients, takes about 2 minutes to make but can be added to umpteenmillion recipes to add more lemon flavor.

I’ve loved having my homemade vanilla sugar on hand. Flavored sugars are a quick and easy way to add more taste to all of your baked goods. In my brainstorming mode I started thinking of different flavored sugars that could be super versatile in baking, and lemon sugar was at the top of my list.

To me this is such an easy thing to keep on hand that saves you from those annoying trips to the store just to get a lemon. You’ll shop once and have the bright essential-oil laden taste of lemon zest without having to skin that lonely wedge of lemon that’s leftover from your takeout.

My family appreciates homemade lemon sugar because it ensures that there are fewer bald lemons hanging out in my fridge, likely being forgotten about after having the zest taken off of them. (I’ve been making lemons bald for forever).

When life gives you lemons, you’ll want to make some lemon sugar!

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Homemade Lemon Sugar

Why you’ll love adding lemon sugar to your homemade pantry for baking

1. Remember once, forget for a while: I don’t always remember to buy organic lemons when I use lemon zest in a recipe. As much as I’d like to, sometimes I don’t want to pay for them and other days I plum forget. With this diy lemon sugar, I only have to remember to buy pesticide-free lemons once, and then I’ll have enough lemon sugar for several recipes.
2. So much more flavor: While grating citrus zest for baking recipes adds a lot of flavor, you get more flavor when you break down that zest as you do making this . This releases more essential oils, naturally boosting the citrus flavor without any chemical citrus extracts, which can be harsh tasting.
3. Convenient: Pop the sugar in the freezer, and you won’t have to make an inconvenient run for lemons.
4. Less waste: You can actually save your peels for later. If you use a lot of lemons in your cooking, skin the lemons first and freeze them to make a batch of lemon sugar later.

Ingredients for homemade lemon sugar

1. Lemons: just the peel, and preferably organic since you’re eating the skin here. Sprayed lemons can have a very chemical taste, something my Mom learned making a batch of homemade limoncello only to come back to something that smelled like clorox wipes. If you don’t have organic lemons, wash yours well, scrubbing the skin as best as you can.
2. Sugar: Regular granulated sugar is best. The granulated rubs against the lemons, helping them break down in the food processor.

Tools for making lemon sugar

1. Food processor: I choose this over just a grater or use it in conjunction with it.
2. Peeler: As much as I love my microplane, the peeler is faster in this case.
3. Microplane: if you don’t use a vegetable peeler, a Microplane will work here too.

Different citrus fruits that make good flavored sugars

Technically, lemon sugar is just an idea; feel free to swap out different citrus. Lime, grapefruit, orange, blood orange, or even tangerine will all make unique citrus infused sugars that you can use in your baking.

How should you use lemon sugar?

• Swap it out for some of the sugar in a recipe: swap out 1 tablespoon of plain sugar for 1 tablespoon of the lemon infused sugar. That 1 tablespoon will lend enough lemon flavor for most recipes.
• Add it to glazes or frostings
• Roll cookies in it before baking.

What kinds of recipes can you use your homemade citrus infused sugar?

1. Whole wheat butter cookies: Add a tablespoon to the sugar to the dough. You can also make a simple glaze for the tops of these simple cutout cookies.
2. Lemon bars
3. Lemon curd
4. Strawberry Mini Cakes: these use a lemon buttermilk sheet cake as the base for the cakes.
5. Soft sugar cookies: roll the cookies in lemon sugar before baking.
6. Whipped cream frosting: sweeten your whipped cream with lemon sugar instead of plain sugar.
7. Lemon blueberry snacking cake

Tips for the freshest tasting lemon sugar

1. Use the food processor: Yes, you can grate the zest finely from a microplane and then stirring the zest into sugar. I don’t do this because the agitation you get in a food processor will give you more taste. This is because the food processor also grinds up the lemon zest so that every single grain of sugar is coated with the lemon’s essential oils.
2. Do not dehydrate the sugar: I’ve seen recipes where people will have you set out the sugar to dry or dehydrate it in the oven. While I can easily do this in my dry Colorado air, I choose not to because the color of the zest can dull. When the color goes, so does that puckery lemon flavor.
3. Store it in the freezer: Scoop your sugar into a jar and toss it in the freezer. From here, it will be easy to use in your recipes and will keep longer without losing flavor.

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