Homemade vanilla extract could not be easier to make, and you get so much more bang for your buck! Let me put this into perspective, using 2024 prices for all organic ingredients (this is in Germany): 750 ml (25 oz.) of vodka costs 14€, and 16 vanilla beans 11€. So for a large bottle of vanilla extract I pay 25€ (about equivalent to US dollars) and can reuse those same vanilla beans several times. The same amount of equivalent purchased vanilla extract would cost over 100€ in the grocery store and would probably be made with a sugar syrup.

This really couldn’t be easier. I’ve been making my own vanilla for years (decades?) and while it used to be a little less expensive, it’s worth it to spend that extra amount at the beginning if you bake a lot, like I do. Vanilla extract makes a lovely, thoughtful gift, too. If you need a quicker alternative, try making vanilla sugar instead.

Vanilla makes baking, drinks, and other sweet dishes taste a little sweeter and more complex. It’s most noticeable in simple desserts like rice pudding, makes a big difference for pancakes, and really takes hot chocolate up a notch. When you make it yourself, and always have a big bottle on hand, you’ll be more likely to add a splash to just about everything.

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

• Vodka: I have used brandy in the past with excellent results, and can recommend it if that’s what you have. But brandy costs more than vodka, the latter of which is also tasteless in cooking and baking. There is not an alcohol-free substitution for this.
• Vanilla beans: you must use whole beans. For extract, they can be rather dry and don’t need to be the pricier long beans. Some shops will sell extract-specific vanilla beans. Pictured are shorter 13cm beans.

Step by Step

Step 1: split the vanilla beans down the middle.

Step 2: place the vanilla beans into a bottle of vodka.

Step 3: let it steep, shaking occasionally, for several months.

Step 4: after a few months, your vanilla extract will be aromatic, golden brown, and ready to use.

Recipe Notes

If you quite often use whole vanilla beans in baking, pop those spent bean pods into your extract too. Scrape the bean, then add the scraped pod to your bottle of extract (it doesn’t matter if it’s already been steeping for a while). There’s no point in throwing it out and there’s definitely still vanilla flavour in there.

On Purchasing Vanilla

The vanilla beans in the grocery store are wildly marked up. For making your own vanilla extract, it’s much better to buy larger quantities online or in specialty stores. There are many vanilla-specific shops online that have reasonably priced vanilla beans available to purchase.

While you have to make a choice based on your own morals and budget, vanilla and anything imported from the global south is something that I consider to be of utmost importance to buy organic and fair-trade. The treatment of people working to produce vanilla (and chocolate, and coffee, and so on) is absolutely appalling when not regulated. The least you can do is buy the better option even if it’s not a perfect one.

How to Store

Once the extract is finished steeping, simply transfer to another clean bottle, or bottles, for storage. It will keep for years. Top up the beans in the original bottle with more vodka and start again. Rotating between the two bottles like this should keep you in enough vanilla.

Expert Tips

• Use more beans: if you want the vanilla to be a darker colour, you can add more beans to the bottle, about double. I don’t find that this really alters the flavour, only the colour, so I stick to about 15.
• Reuse those beans: I keep the same vanilla beans for ages, simply adding more vodka once it runs out. Every few months I’ll add a new bean or two to the mix, and refresh the beans entirely every couple of years.
• Label the bottles: for gifting vanilla extract, it’s always nice to add a little label to the bottle. You can make custom labels on the computer or simply cut something out with nice paper and write it by hand.

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