Honey is honestly one of the non-vegan ingredients that I’ve missed the most, but not anymore! This vegan honey alternative is so tasty, and honestly, so spot on! I was pleasantly surprised to find out this tastes so similar to honey.

I’ve used this honey for practically everything now. To sweeten teas, to top peanut butter toast, to make honey mustard, honey vinegarette, to dip strawberries in, you name it!

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If you’re not vegan, you might be wondering… Why don’t vegans eat honey? And there are quite a few reasons for that, but I’ll list my top three.

1. Bees are animals, and vegans don’t eat anything that comes from an animal 🐝

2. An individual bee only makes 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey throughout their entire life -that’s a lot of work! Bees also do not hibernate. They store their honey for them to eat during the winter months. If you steal their honey, they starve and die.

3. The most important reason for me: Honey bees aren’t native to the US, and are often invasive! They compete for resources with our native pollinators and are contributing to their decline. They decrease biodiversity and this allows for diseases to spread more easily to other pollinators. Honey bees also don’t pollinate flowers nearly as well as our natives do. If you want to #savethebees give up honey! Yes, even local honey.

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There are so many more reasons to give up honey that I didn’t list, but I’ll leave that research up to you.

Some further reading:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-honey-bees/

https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan/honey-industry

https://www.wired.com/2015/04/youre-worrying-wrong-bees/

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Ingredients:

Dandelion petals from 6 large handfuls of flowers
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 Tbs lemon juice

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Steps:

1. Soak the dandelion flowers in water for about 5 minutes (to get the dirt and bugs off)

2. Remove the petals from the flowers. Remove as much green as you can, you only want the petals.

3. Gently simmer the dandelion petals in water for 20 minutes, then cover with a lid and turn off the heat. Let steep at room temp for a few hours until totally cool (4-5 hrs). Strain out the dandelion petals after steeping. Now you have a strong dandelion tea.

4. Heat the dandelion tea to a low boil. Add the sugar and lemon juice, stir until the sugar is incorporated. Turn the heat down and simmer gently for 30 minutes- 1 hour, until it reaches your desired syrup thickness. Stir occasionally so the sugar doesn’t burn the bottom of your pot. Remember the syrup will get much thicker as it cools!

Let cool and enjoy!

Store in the fridge. It keeps fresh for about a month, although I am sure it would stay fresh longer, it runs out fast in this house I wouldn’t know!

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Notes:

If your honey is too thick, reheat and add more water or dandelion tea.

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Photos:

Dead nettle & lemon balm tea with dandelion honey 🍯

Strawberry dipped in dandelion honey

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-Autumn ❤️

Follow me on instagram @Autumn.The.Vegan and @Vegan.Forager for more!