Sugar Free Berry Syrup Recipe - Gwen's Nest (2024)

This sugar free syrup recipe is a weekly staple in my kitchen. This completely guilt-free sweet, tangy, berry goodness tops my Greek yogurt snacks; my pancakes; my lovely muffin creations from the recipes in Trim Healthy Mama (book review here). And it does not stick to the muffin tops, if you get my drift.

It’s super-quick to whip up a whole jar-full, which we plow through in a week or less.

So I have really no idea how long it would last outside of that. I switch up flavors every week, so we don’t get bored. I’ve made…

blackberry

black cherry…

I’ve even made peach, which is a bit higher carb, but delicious on my E pancakes.

This is a batch of strawberry-blackberry I’m starting on.

This one is mixed berry…just the blend from Aldis. It’s my current favorite.

This is how it comes together:
I use one full 14 ounce bag, or about 2 cups of frozen berries for the syrup. Add these to your saucepan, and cover with 2 cups of water.

Put your pan on the stove, and turn the heat on medium low.

Now, I’m gonna use 2 ingredients in this that you may not have, but you can sub with whatever you’ve got.

The first is this little shaker jar of NuNaturals brand pure Stevia Extract.
There are, that I know of, 3 brands of stevia extract that don’t taste like licking freshly sprayed chem-lawn. This is one of them.

You only need a teensy-tiny amount. SO tiny, in fact, that I pretty much just leave my bottle with only the 3 smallest holes open.

And when I say tiny, I mean the finest dusting of micro-fine powder will do-ya. I use about 5 shakes, and then stir and taste until I achieve a decent sweetness.

If you’ve not cooked with stevia before, it’s a different type of sweet from sugar…a gentle sweet. More is not better with here. Getting too much gets you into the bitter-aftertaste-ish zone, and we don’t wanna go there.

If you don’t have any of this, then feel free to sub your favorite sweetener option. You’ll be able to just use it ‘to taste’ and please do feel free to sneak a taste to make sure it’s just right.

Now we come to the second weird ingredient. I found out about this amazing stuff from the book Trim Healthy Mama that is mentioned & linked above. It’s a thickener made from a starchy root, but it’s low carb, high fiber, and tasteless. You only use a very small amount to achieve a great, clingy-syrup-like consistency. Xanthan gum is a good sub, but I’m not sure how much you’d want to use.

This is what I have. (Don’t mess with capsules…the gluccomannan isn’t as potent.)

I use 1/2 teaspoon, and *don’t* just dump it in there…gluccomannan is kind of an odd deal, in that it IMMEDIATELY expands and gels when it hits liquid. And forms not-so-delicious gel-blumps.

So unless you enjoy gel-balls (and I don’t), gently sprinkle your gluccomannan over the berries while stirring. You’ll notice when it hits the water, it absorbs in and spreads out. Keep it in a fine sifted dusting, and you’ll not have any issue with clumps.

Add a small pinch of salt to wake up all that lovely flavor. And by pinch, I mean less than 1/8th of a teaspoon. Stir, taste, and adjust your sweetness. Please don’t skip the salt. I know it sounds weird, but it gives more of a depth of flavor to wake up the sweetness of the stevia.

I really like a couple of drops of lemon essential oil in the mixed berry, to give it some zing. Or you can use a couple teaspoons of fresh lemon juice to get the same effect.

The strawberries are a little too big for what I want, so I either do this…

Or this. Depending on whether I’m in a power tool mood or not.

I scooted the big berries underneath the immersion blender and gave them a good whirring. I kinda like most of the smaller berries being whole. But if you’re not a whole-berry loving person, or if you accidentally dumped in your gluccomannan all at once, and have a gel blob problem on your hands, then feel free to whir it like you mean it. It’ll still taste JUST as good!

I just heat and stir until it gets thick and a little bubbly…for a couple of minutes over medium low heat. Then let it cool down a bit. It’ll thicken up more as it cools down.
See how yummy and perfectly thick this is!

Then I pour it into a 3 cup canning jar, and into the fridge it goes.

Now, if you make a big jar of berry sugar free syrup, then you’re going to need a lovely quick pancake to go with it. And butter. I’ll tell you more about that next.

Here is your printable for this fabulous sugar free syrup recipe!