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Pomegranate Molasses Recipe

Pomegranate molasses in a jar and a spoon on its top.

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Make your own sour pomegranate molasses with only one ingredients: Fresh pomegranate juice. 

Ingredients

  • 10 large pomegranates, about 5 cups pomegranate juice (please read note 1)

Instructions

If you use store-bought pomegranate juice, go directly to step 7.

Take out the seeds of pomegranates:

  1. Cut the pomegranates width-wise into two.

  2. Take half of the pomegranate, place it in your hand, cut side down. Your fingers should be loose and apart. Place your hand over a large mixing bowl. Now firmly tap several times on the top of the pomegranate with a sturdy wooden spoon. And don’t do it gently. You will see the pomegranate arils release and drop into the bowl between your fingers.

  3. Repeat this with all the pomegranate halves.

  4. If you see any white membrane among the pomegranate seeds in the bowl, remove it. You can pour water on the seeds and those white membrane pieces will float. Discard them completely.

Make pomegranate juice:

  1. Put the pomegranate arils (seeds) into a food processor or a high blender and pulse for 15 seconds. You might need to work in small batches depending on your food processor. (Please read note 2)

  2. Place a fine-mesh strainer on a bowl and strain the juice through it by pressing on the purée with a spoon. Discard the remaining white seeds. 

Make pomegranate molasses:

  1. Pour the pomegranate juice into a deep saucepan.

  2. Bring it to a boil over medium high heat, occasionally discarding the foams on the surface with a slotted spoon. 

  3. Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium low. You will first see it gets a lovely pinky color but it’s not thick enough (after about 2 hours). 

  4. Keep simmering until the consistency thickens into a syrup and more than half of the juice is gone (it evaporates). Adjust the heat as needed. It should be simmering during the whole process, not boiling.

  5. You will see that the pink color will turn into brown as it simmers. Make sure to stir it occasionally to prevent it from getting caramelized. You can understand that it reaches the right consistency when it starts looking syrupy, not watery. We cook it for 3 hours in total.

  6. Allow it to cool and store in jars or containers for up to a year. You will get about 1 cup molasses.

Notes

  1. You can buy pure pomegranate juice and use it instead if you want a shortcut. Make sure it doesn’t have any sweeteners. The amount of pomegranate juice doesn’t really matter, you follow exactly the same steps. Just the amount of the molasses you get would vary. The more juice you use, the more molasses you get.
  2. When making pomegranate juice in a food processor, don’t pulse it too much. We don’t want to blend the white hard parts inside the arils. Otherwise, your juice will taste a bit bitter.

  3. Pomegranate molasses in Middle Eastern cuisine doesn’t include any sugar. It is used just like lemon juice with a unique flavor. So we don’t use any sugar in this recipe. If you want your molasses sweeter, combine 1/2 cup sugar and 5 cups pomegranate juice in the saucepan and cook them together. Keep in mind that it will thicken faster when you add sugar. Your sauce will be ready after about 1 and ½ hours.

  4. Don’t ever try to speed up the process by cooking it on high heat. It should simmer slowly over medium low heat. Adjust the heat as needed to prevent the liquid in the pan from boiling.

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