Healthy homemade dandelion gelatin recipe – a sunny treat for a summer’s day! Forage dandelions for free in your backyard and use them immediately for this healthy dessert. No need to keep buying jello dessert from the store, simply learn to make your own at home.
Healthy Homemade Dandelion Gelatin Dessert
If you’re new to foraging, dandelions are a great place to start. Dandelions are:
- Easy to spot
- Bloom early in the spring until the late fall
- Are an ethical forage since they grow so abundantly
- Versatile in the kitchen
- Loved by children and bees alike
Learn more about the specifics of how to forage wild, free food including best practices, equipment, etc.
More Dandelion Recipes
Forsythia Dandelion Jelly Recipe
Dandelion Gelatin Dessert Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 Cups Dandelion Flower Tea* OR 1 Cup Dandelion Tea Plus One Cup Organic Apple Juice
- 2 Tbsp. Organic Beef Gelatin
- 1/4 Cup Raw or Coconut Sugar
- 1/4 Cup Quality Honey
- Dash of Turmeric for color - optional
Instructions
- Put the tea* or the tea/juice combination into a saucepan.
- Add gelatin and let bloom**; stir in to combine.
- Bring to a simmer on medium heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Remove from heat and let sit for a few minutes - don't let it go too long or will get clumpy.
- Add honey and test sweetness until it makes you happy.
- Place into gelatin mold, ice cube tray, or glass baking dish.
- Refrigerate for 4-6 hours or for better results, leave in fridge overnight.
Notes
Notes on Gel Set for Homemade Dandelion Gelatin
If you’re living off grid and/or without a fridge, get creative with the cooling. This mixture will gel a bit left on its own regardless. However, in the warmer months it won’t ever really set up without a good temperature drop. You can also try what Amelia, an intrepid reader, pointed out:
“If no refrigeration, you can use agar agar, a vegetarian gelatin made from seaweed (no it doesn’t taste like seaweed, no taste). Texture is firmer and not as ‘jiggly’ as animal gelatin.”
FAQs of Homemade Gelatin Dessert
Anyone can learn to make gelatin dessert at home with simple, healthy ingredients. However, if you’ve never done it before, you might have a few questions.
Can You Make Gelatin at Home?
Yes, you can make homemade gelatin dessert at home! You can use fruit juices or herbal teas, healthy sugar, and organic gelatin to make your own gelatin dessert yourself.
Making gelatin itself is a different process and there’s really no easy way to produce it at home. At least, not the gelatin you and I are used to using in the kitchen.
What Can be Used Instead of Gelatin?
As our reader, Amelia, pointed out above, agar agar is one of the most common substitutes for gelatin. It’s a vegetarian option since it’s derived from seaweed, although it has no seaweed flavor. It’s more potent than gelatin, so start experimenting by using half the amount you would for a gelatin recipe.
Another common substitute for gelatin is regular pectin. You can even learn to make your own powdered pectin from apples. There’s no exact replacement ratio and I’ve only used homemade apple pectin but you can start with doubling the amount of pectin.
Different juices and teas will all react differently depending on what their water ratio ends up being. Just experiment
What’s the Difference Between Gelatin and Jello?
Jello, or Jell-O®, is simply the brand name of the boxed, flavored gelatin dessert that you can buy in the store.
Gelatin is an ingredient in homemade gelatin dessert. Organic gelatin is usually made from beef bones. Hollywood Homestead has a great post explaining what what grass-fed gelatin is.
Dandelion Resources
Chocolate Dandelion Milkshake Recipe
A delicious and healthy mix of dandelion, cocoa, bone broth powder and homemade whipped cream.
Roasted Dandelion Root Chai
Dandelions for Food and Medicine that You Can Count On
Traditional Scandinavian Dandelion Syrup Recipe
Dandelion & Honey Ice Cream
Dandelion Pesto
Dandelion cupcakes with sunflower seeds
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Your daughter is a genius! What a wonderful idea – pinning to my dandelions board for sure! 🙂
I say that all the time, Jan! I’ll pass on your compliment for sure. I need to go check out your dandelion board…
Wow – this is a great recipe! I know dandelions have some great benefits AND my kids love jello. Good way to get them some extra nutrition. Thanks for linking up at the Natural Living Monday and Healthy Meal Planning Linkup!
This is a new one for me…. I have never heard of this … or even thought of it!! Thank you for the great idea. 🙂
It was new to me, too! My kids have great ideas and I just run with them – that’s why they’re my best friends. Well, that and that the forgive me when I’m a creep and love my pancakes. What are friends for?
I know it’s been a while, but how much honey would be a good starting point? Making this with some of our middle school students and I don’t want to be tasting as we go…
Thanks!
That makes sense! Let’s see, if you use straight dandelion tea, I’d say start at a scant 1/2 cup of honey. If you use dandelion tea cut with apple juice, use a scant 1/4 cup of honey. Taste, especially sweet, is tricky because it’s so relative. However, I hope that will land you somewhere in the yummy zone.
If you like, email me at Tessa@homesteadlady.com for a little gift for you and your class that might be helpful for further fun!
Going to try this dandelion jello idea. If no refrigeration, you can use agar agar, a vegetarian gelatin made from seaweed (no it doesn’t taste like seaweed, no taste). Texture is firmer and not as “jiggly” as animal gelatin. Made some for Easter using mango juice/puree; the kids loved it.
Thanks so much for the tip about agar agar – I had no idea! I’ll go add that to the article so others know.
We actually just made some dandelion gelatin this week. It’s one of the first things we do with dandelions. I let it steep too long this time and it was much more green and plant-y flavored – I wasn’t sure my kids would like it as well. They slurped it right up, though! One of them even said they liked how it tasted like actual dandelions.
Kids surprise me ALL the time!
What an easy and delicious recipe that kids will appreciate. I may try it with maple syrup.
Maple syrup would be delicious!
This is great! I wonder, if the agar agar is firmer, could you make gummies with this?
It might be, I have yet to use it!
Yes, you can make gummies with this recipe by increasing the amount of gelatin. Try doubling it and see how it works with your gummy mold. Some molds release really well and some you have to argue with.
This is such a unique way to capture those lovely dandelions!
Tasty, too! Thanks for stopping by!
I can’t wait to try this! I wonder if we could add homemade apple cider vinegar as well, double the gelatin and make super healthy gummies… experiment incoming, methinks! 😉
Yes, it makes delicious gummies – have fun!
Loved by children and bees alike! Ha! I love that you used something growing in the back yard for a tasty treat. Great post.
The backyard is my favorite grocery store. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
I’m trying it with cinnamon and ginger powder along with the turmeric. I think that these warming spices will do well with the apple juice flavor!
Sounds delicious! Let me know how it turns out, if you think of it – I’d love to know!
Do you have to use sugar if using honey? Just worry that it will be overly sweet and drown out the natural dandelion taste.
No, you can just use the honey; it’s the gelatin that makes the liquid set up. Sweet is such a relative taste, so make it however sounds good to you. You can always make another batch to try more or less sweet. Tasty experiments!
When do you add the sugar?
So sorry I didn’t get back to you right away – we’ve been out of town with a show my kids are doing.
Ok, so the honey is in the instructions, but you’re quite right that I neglected to give instructions for granulated sugar. You can put it into the pot and stir until it’s dissolved as you combine everything else over heat.
Big hit with my kids! They loved the whole process of harvesting fresh dandelions to make these tasty treats. We made both versions – one with honey and sugar and the other with just honey, Overall we prefer the honey only option since we felt it was the perfect amount of sweetness. Plus for some reason, they were easier to remove from the molds, more firmer, and had a more golden in color than the batch with the added raw sugar. As for color, we did not have to add the turmeric to achieve the gold color. Definitely will be making each year when the dandelions bloom. Thanks again for sharing this amazing recipe and idea. 🙂
So glad they enjoyed it! And glad you experimented with both – thank you for taking time to report your results. That’s so helpful for other readers and for me!
My teens still ask for this recipe! We’ve been doing it since they were young and the memories are as delicious as the treat. I wish you years of dandelion joy with your kiddos!