Chive Blossom Vinegar Recipe

This Chive Blossom Vinegar recipe is easy to make, a simple process of infusing vinegar with flowers. It takes about 15 minutes to prepare, then 1-3 weeks for the vinegar to be ready. The pretty potion can be used for dressings, marinades, shrubs and reductions, on sandwiches, soups and potatoes, to make pickles… Once you taste this vinegar, ideas for using it in your cooking will follow.

Use organically grown chives and blossoms so that you don’t ingest pesticides or other chemicals. Before you make the Chive Blossom Vinegar recipe, you must wash and dry the flowers. I use a salad spinner – if you don’t have one use a drying screen or the cooling racks you use for baking. I do not suggest drying the blossoms in an oven because heating them diminishes the onion flavor.

To make the Chive Blossom Vinegar recipe, I use clear or pale vinegar (rice wine, champagne, white balsamic). This is because the pom-pom shaped flowers turn the liquid a vivid pinky-purple shade. Since the vinegar is visually appealing, I prefer to use clear jars. Place the filled jars in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks until the liquid changes color. Check the bottles daily to make sure none of the flowers have floated up and out of the vinegar. If they have, push them back in with a clean utensil or they can mold and ruin the batch.

I make this recipe with one chive flower for each ounce of vinegar. For the Chive Blossom Vinegar photos in this post, I used 16 flowers and approximately 16 ounces of vinegar in each 20 ounce jar. It is important to leave space between the liquid and the jar seals. This keeps the vinegar from reacting with and deteriorating them.

This recipe is set for one 16 ounce bottle, but you can easily alter the amount. Simply change the number next to where it says “servings” in the recipe and it will auto-adjust it for you.

I photographed the Chive Blossom Vinegar in a local park because it was sunnier than our garden at that time of day. When we got home and viewed the pics, we could not stop laughing at the photo below; that’s our greyhound son Django photo-bombing the vinegar.

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Onion Chives bloom in the spring, but they have an equally delicious counterpart that blooms in the fall: Garlic Chives. In our region (Mid-Atlantic, zone 7b) Garlic Chives bloom from late-August through the end of September, sometimes a little longer. Garlic chive flowers look like a ball of tiny white stars.

There is the expected difference in taste – onion vs garlic – but garlic chive flowers can be used in any of my onion chive flower recipes. You can see garlic chive flowers in action here on this Easy Flatbread Pizza recipe.

For growing information, read the Glamorosi Cooks article titled How to Grow, Harvest and Divide Chives.

Print Recipe

Chive Blossom Vinegar Recipe

This Chive Blossom Vinegar recipe is infused with fresh chive flowers that impart a delicious onion flavor and a vivid pinkish-purple hue.

Recipe by~ Reese Amorosi

Votes: 4
Rating: 5
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Rate this recipe!

Course

Condiments, Pantry

Cuisine

Vegetarian

Keyword

Edible Flowers, Herbs and Spices, Oils and Vinegars, Pantry, Vegetarian

Prep Time

10 minutes

Passive Time

2 weeks

Servings

MetricUS Imperial

Ingredients

• 16 chive blossoms washed and dried
• 16 ounces vinegar Champagne, white wine, etc.

Course Condiments, Pantry Cuisine Vegetarian Keyword Edible Flowers, Herbs and Spices, Oils and Vinegars, Pantry, Vegetarian Prep Time 10 minutes Passive Time 2 weeks Servings MetricUS Imperial Ingredients 16 chive blossoms washed and dried 16 ounces vinegar Champagne, white wine, etc.

Votes: 4 Rating: 5 You: Rate this recipe!

Instructions

1. Place the chive blossoms into sterilized jar, pour vinegar over them leaving space at the top so the vinegar doesn't react with the seal or lid.
2. Place in the refrigerator for 1-3 weeks until the vinegar reaches the desired potency, then strain into new or re-sterilized jars.

Recipe Notes

Chive Blossom Vinegar makes a lovely hostess or house-warming gift. Add a pretty label, ribbon or twine, and a pack of chive seeds or potted chives.