This is a super easy recipe for how to make chive vinegar at home. It’s a light tangy vinegar that is great for those summer salads. It takes it’s amazing colour form the pretty purple chive flowers.
What’s not to love about chives? I love their zippy hot flavour, their spiky style and their edible flowers that look oh so pretty.
Now you can of course snip your chives into salads, use them as a garnish, add them to soups, use them in pestos and dips too. Today I’m making mine into this pretty pink chive vinegar.
What does chive vinegar taste like?
This delightfull chive vinegar has a light onion flavour. Of course if you use garlic chives you will get a distinct garlic flavour to this infused vinegar.
Is chive vinegar easy to make?
Yes, like all infused vinegars it is a breeze to make. And gives you a little taste of summer right through the winter months. Anything that brings back memories of summer sunshine is good in my book.
Come those winter months (and they seem to go on forever here) things like this chive vinegar help to bring back the taste of summer.
Chive vinegar ingredients
You want to use the stalks and the flower heads in this vinegar to get this gorgeous pinky colour. If you just use the stalks you will get the flavour but not the extra bonus of pinkness which is just so pretty in the bottle.
The only other ingredient is the vinegar.
What type of vinegar do you use?
Now you can use white wine vinegar or cider vinegar if you like. Cider will have a stronger flavour though. Champagne vinegar is another option. Avoid red wine vinegar as it will ruin the colour of this gorgeous homemade chive vinegar.
DO NOT use malt vinegar or basic white vinegar. These are fine for your fish and chips but way too strong for this delicately flavoured chive vinegar. Their taste will swamp the chives completely.
How to make chive vinegar
Stuff a large Kilner type jar (or any wide mouthed jar) with chives and chive flowers and fill up with white wine vinegar.
Seal and shake well. Set aside in a cool dark cupboard and remember to shake it every day for 1 week.
Now strain out the herbs through a sieve lined with paper towel and decant into a sterilised bottle. Check out my article on how to sterilise jars and bottles.
How to use chive vinegar
This delightfully light and fragrant vinegar has a light onion flavour from the chives and is perfect on light summery green salads. Anything that wants a boost of flavour but a lightness of hand.
How long will this last?
Store your vinegar in a cool dark cupboard and it will keep for up to a year. The colour will fade if it is exposed to light.
Looking for more ideas for homemade vinegars, then check these out;
If you are looking for more super easy and fun way to make full use of herbs then you really should see my book So Easy Herbal (available in both hardback and Kindle) and also the eBook version complete with how-to videos called 10 Herbs At Home and How To use Them.
Finally, if you do try this recipe don’t forget to leave a comment/star rating below as I just love to hear from readers. Want more Larder Love? Then follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter and sign up for my newsletter too of course.
How to make chive vinegar
Ingredients
- 1 cup chives chopped chives plus the flower heads too, that's what gives you the gorgeous pink colour
- 1 cup white wine vinegar enough to completely cover the chives in your chosen jar
Instructions
- Chop the chives and pack them into a clean wide mouthed jar, Kilner type jars are great for this
- pour in white wine vinegar to completely cover the chines and push them down into the vinegar
- pop on the lid and leave in a cool dark cupboard for 1 week to let those flavours soak out of the chives and into the vinegar
- strain the vinegar through a paper towel lined sieve and decant into a sterilised bottle
This sounds so easy and delicious. I always use chives in my salades but never thought to make vinegar from it. Thank you !
Glad to have inspired you to make some. So well worth the minimal effort, looks and tastes great too.
Kx
This chive vinegar is delicious. So simple and fun to make. Love the color.! Had its first outing on the patio last night along with some garden leaves and salads. Sharp and tangy.
Hi Sally
Thrilled the vinegar has turned out so well and was fun to make. I love it.
K