Elderberries: How to Harvest, Preserve & Use (+Free Printable Cheat Sheet!)

Freezing Elderberries

Freezing is a longer-term way to preserve your elderberries.

Taking a cookie sheet pan, cover it with parchment paper. You can either place entire clusters of fruit onto the pan, stems clipped close to the head and placed, stem-side-up, on the parchment paper, or you can go ahead and remove the berries from the stem, spreading them out as a single layer on the parchment.

Pop this in the freezer for several hours or overnight. They will be solid enough to put away.

For elderberries you left the stems on, use this time to de-stem the berries, collecting them in a separate container and discarding the stems. Store the berries in freezer bags or freezer-safe containers. Sealing them with a vacuum sealer will help to prolong their freezer life even further.

Frozen elderberries are generally good 6-10 months, but may be good for as long as a year. This method is a great way to store elderberries (and destem elderberries with minimal fuss!) for making jelly or syrup later in the year, when elderberries are not available.

Drying Elderberries

Dried elderberries are helpful to have on hand year round. Once completely dried, they have a shelf life of around 1 year, or as long as they smell good and aren’t faded.

To dry the berries in a dry climate, you can use screens. (Highly humidity climates may find they mold or ferment too easily this way.)

To dry elderberries on a screen, spread the berries in a single layer over screens, stirring with a clean hand a couple times a day. Depending on your climate and temperature in your house this could take several days to a week.

We’ve found that a dehydrator works great for our humid summers. We use a hand-me-down old Nesco dehydrator set at 125 degrees F, lining the trays with parchment paper so the berries don’t fall through.

You can start checking your berries after about 6 hours in the dehydrator and stir every so often, but ours usually takes overnight, or around 12 to 14 hours to completely dry.

Once completely dry, store in a glass jar out of the light, with a tight-sealing lid.

Tips for Using Elderberries in Recipes & Remedies

Elderberries can be used fresh or dried. There’s some conflicting opinions about using them raw or cooked. Cooking is said to reduce the toxins in the seeds and is what most herbalists seem to prefer, while those in the raw camp believe heat destroys the medicinal benefits.

• The toxic elements in the seeds become a problem when crushed. If you simmer the whole berries, or infuse the whole raw berries in vinegar or alcohol, and don’t crush the seeds, the mixture is fine to use. Just be sure to strain out the seeds before consuming.
• Eating a whole berry with an uncrushed seed will likely pass right through you (but still not recommended!) Chewing or pulverizing the berries so the seeds break open, are not good things to do.
• If a couple small stems are left with the elderberries, it will be okay. Try to get as many as possible, but if you miss one or two, it’s fine. It’s not okay to leave the stems on all or most of the berries.
• If you’re concerned about getting an upset stomach from raw elderberries, just heat or cook them first for at least ten to twenty minutes. (And don’t forget to strain out the seeds!)

FREE Elderberry Remedies & Recipes Printable

We’ve made this free elderberry cheat sheet that you can grab and print out, or save to reference when you’re making things with elderberries!

Just click on the thumbnail above and the pdf file should automatically open (unless you have super strict browser settings, then you may need to try another browser.)

There’s no signup required, no strings attached, and feel free to share with your friends and family. 🙂

1. Elderberry Vinegar

Elderberry vinegar may sound like a strange thing to make, but you can use it to make (among other things) delicious honey-caramel candies! You can also often use it in recipes that normally call for fruit or balsamic vinegar. So why not try making a jar, just to experiment with?

To make elderberry vinegar:

Dried or fresh elderberries are poured to partially fill a glass mason or canning jar (half-way with fresh elderberries, one-fourth way with dried berries), then apple-cider vinegar is used to top it up. Cover with a plastic lid (metal will rust!), let it steep for 1-4 weeks in the refrigerator, and strain; you’ve got a jar of elderberry vinegar!

Elderberry vinegar is good for 3 or 4 months when kept in the refrigerator, or you can process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes for longer shelf life.

2. Elderberry Syrup

Elderberry syrup might seem scary, but it’s actually an easy, minimal-fuss project that you can make in an afternoon!

Elderberries are destemmed and covered with water, and simmered for a short while, sometimes with a stick of cinnamon or a small slice of ginger. The fruit gets smashed gently around a bit with a fork to release the dark, rich juices, and after gentle heating, it goes through a strainer, the seeds and pulp discarded, and a mess of golden, sweet raw honey gets mixed in with the lot.

Elderberry syrup should be stored in the refrigerator for about a month. Find the full recipe at our other site, The Nerdy Farm Wife.

3. Elderberry Tincture

Elderberry tincture can be made with dry or fresh berries, so you can make it year-round as you need it! This is a slower project, as it needs 4-6 weeks to infuse, but once it’s made, it’s good for a whole year, or sometimes even longer!

A jar is partially filled with dried or fresh elderberries (1/4 way with dried, 1/2 way with fresh berries), then it’s filled the rest of the way with high proof alcohol. Then the lid is secured, a label gets slapped onto the jar, and the tincture gets hidden away somewhere dark to infuse for about 4 weeks! After that, it’s just a matter of straining out the elderberries, and bottling your new tincture into glass jars or bottles, and storing in a cool, dark location for best shelf life.

A few drops are all that’s used at a time- dropped into your favorite drink, or in a spoonful of honey- so one batch of tincture is probably all you need for the year!

Video: Elderberry Slideshow

Here’s a slideshow summarizing this article.(Sometimes an ad plays first, but the video will start right after! The video player won’t show up if you have an adblocker.)

The leaves are useful too! We make a salve with the leaves (for bumps & bruises).