Did you know that Sea Buckthorn berries are a power house of antioxidants and vitamins especially Vit C and Vit A ?Sea Buckthorn is a miracle plant that gives us one of the best types of berries in the world. These berries are too good to be wasted with just jellies, so I have compiled together top 10 Sea Buckthorn Recipes in this post. I will also be giving you tips on harvesting them easily.
Sea Buckthorn berries are also called as Sand thorn or sallow thorn. The German word is Sanddorn.These common shrubs have dense and stiff branches and are very thorny. The leaves on these shrubs are a distinct pale silvery-green color. Last year I have already posted an easy to make Sea Buckthorn Jelly Recipe. I also mentioned the process to harvest these thorny berries and linked more information on Sea Buckthorn berries /Hippophae .
Tips on Harvesting
The best time for harvesting Sea Buckthorn berries is just before the first freeze. Typically the berries get ripe by mid of September. So lets say by end of September till early October would be typical harvest time in Switzerland.
The berries grow in a very tight clumps thereby making it difficult to pick. They also lack an abscission layer, meaning the berry does not detach from the stem when it is ripe. In fact, it pretty much has a death grip on the tree. So how can you harvest the berries?
You can take a pair of sharp pruning shears and snip the berries out of the tree. Try to do this somewhat sparingly because the shrub has to recover for the next season. If we cut a lot of the branches, the following year the yield will not be so good. Some gardeners even go so far as to say to harvest every second year.
So lets leave some for the birds shall we.
Another way to harvest would be to let the berries freeze and then shake the shrubs and collect the berries. That would be tedious in my garden, we have difficulty to get to the shrubs as it is.
A third way would be to freeze those cut branches and then pull out the berries. Our friend tried this and he wouldn’t advice this because your fingers do get frozen.
This year I figured out and easy method to remove those berries without having to pick them individually. We used a fork to pick out the ripe berries. Click on the short clip below to see how we did it.
Without further ado lets dive into those recipes.
How to pick the Sea Buckthorn berries easily Video
Top 10 Sea Buckthorn Berry Recipes
1. Freeze
Wash the berries and dry them on a cloth and pick the best sturdy ripe berries and freeze the berries. These berries can be used for smoothies and also juiced during the winter months. They give an extra boost of Vitamin C needed especially in winter to prevent colds and flu.
2. Juicing
We used a juicer to extract the juice from the washed berries because the berries will just be crushed easily to extract the juices. Plus by using a juicer the pulps are easily separated without much effort. Since we cannot consume all the juice in one go, I froze the juice into silicone molds to use at a later date. We can also throw these cubes, dilute it with a little water, add some honey and drink them. Because, the taste is quite tart, I needed a sweetener. If you don’t mind the tart taste you can drink it straight away. These cubes can also be added into smoothies.
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How to Juice Sea Buckthorn Berries if you have no Juicer
Wash the berries and blend them using a hand blender or a food processor. This will result in a runny puree of the berries and their seeds.
Add a sweetener, and blend the berries for 1 more minute.
Strain the juice using a strainer, and set the pulp aside. Don’t throw away the pulp, we will get to it later.
Dilute the juice with water. It is best to dilute the juice if you don’t want it very tart. Another reason is to protect the enamel of our teeth.
Freeze the juice if you have excess and cannot consume in one go.
3. Purée-ing the berries
Can you purèe these berries ? Yes, that would be another option. Purée them to achieve a fine consistency. Pour the purée into molds and freeze them. In addition to having smaller cube, you have portion control and its easier to defrost them when needed. Once frozen, remove from the molds and transfer to freezer bags.
4. Sea Buckthorn Tea
Sea Buckthorn teas are known to aid weight loss, although I wouldn’t lay medical claims on this. A tea containing sea buckthorn leaves is also a good source of vitamins, antioxidants, protein building blocks (amino acids), fatty acids and minerals; for improving blood pressure and lowering cholesterol; preventing and controlling blood vessel diseases; and boosting immunity. If you can air dry the berries, you can make tea with it.
Sea buckthorn tea recipe
- 2 Tbsps dry sea buckthorn berries with some leaves
- 1 cup water
Add the berries and dried leaves and water into a pot. Bring to a boil then remove from heat and cover with a lid. Let the berries and leaves infuse for 10 minutes. Add some lemon juice and sweetener to it. This is optional.
5. Sea Buckthorn Muffin Recipe
This is another tasty recipe in this series of Top 10 Sea Buckthorn Recipes. I cannot claim it as my own. I got it from Sea Buckthorn recipes.
Ingredients
1 cup (250 ml) unbleached flour
2 tsp (5 ml) baking powder
½ cup (125 ml) granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
½ cup (125 ml) sea buckthorn berries, fresh or frozen, washed and destemmed
1 table spoon. Egg Replacer or ( 1Egg beaten)
¼ cup (63 ml) butter, melted
½ cup (125 ml) milk
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 380°F (180°C). Place parchment liners in a 12 cup muffin pan.
Mix together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Add sea buckthorn berries and mix to coat.
In a separate small bowl, mix together egg (or if using the egg replacer follow the instructions), butter, and milk.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid ingredients. Stir just until combined. Pour batter into prepared muffin pan. Bake for 15 minutes.
Note: I used an egg replacer called Veg-egg for this Since I am a vegetarian and eat no eggs.
Because sea buckthorn berries are used whole in this recipe, be prepared for a few crunchy seeds. You can use berry purée if you wish to avoid the seeds.
6. Sea Buckthorn-Rosemary infused Vinegar
We are already into the 6th recipe from our top 10 Sea Buckthorn recipes, which can be added to our Christmas present baskets. This is so easy to make and because we don’t have to alter the berries with heat we don’t lose those vitamins.
Ingredients
- 2 cups Sea Buckthorn berries
- Organic Apple Cider Vinegar
- Few sprigs Rosemary
- Sterilized glass jars without metal lids.
Method:
Rinse the berries, remove any excess water by passing through the sieve and then dry them overnight on kitchen towels. If moisture remains in the berries, it will cause bacteria to destroy the vinegar you are infusing the berries with.
Place the berries into a sterilized glass jar with no metallic lid because this will rust when it comes in contact with the vinegar. I used a clip glass jar as shown in the picture.
Crush the herbs and add into the jar.
Heat the vinegar on medium heat gently and remove just before it starts boiling and let it cool slightly. Pour the warm vinegar into the jar and place the lid on.
Leave the vinegar undisturbed in a dark cupboard or your cellar for about 3-4 weeks to let the flavor mature. Strain the vinegar and pour into bottles.
7. Sea Buckthorn Jam recipe
In order to shorten this post please refer to my post from last year. Sea Buckthorn Berry Jam.
For the Jam this year, we used the juicer to extract the juice.
Ingredients:
1 Liter of Sea Buckthorn Juice
1.5 Kg of Jam Sugar
Cook the jam for about 15 minutes. Boil vigorously for about 10 minutes then reduce heat to a rolling boil, stir often to avoid the jelly catching on to the bottom of the pan.
Keep a plate in the freezer to chill and after a few minutes of boiling. Spoon a small amount of the jam mixture and as soon as it sets while tilting, then its time to remove from fire and bottle into sterilized jars.
Due to the fact that the berries have lots of pectin, the jam will set easily.
8. Variation of the Jam- Sea Buckthorn with Cinnamon
Follow the same recipe as above, just add 3 teaspoons of freshly ground cinnamon.
Other variations can be to add apple to the jam.
9. Scandinavian Sea Buckthorn Vinegar
This Vinegar will again make an ideal Christmas present. I got this recipe from this site Scandinavian Sea Buckthorn vinegar recipe
Ingredients:
200 g fresh Sea buckthorn berries
500 ml white wine vinegar
250 g Caster Sugar
2 Liter Sterilized glass jar with glass lid. ( because a metallic lid will rust when it comes in contact with the vinegar)
Method
Rinse the berries in cold water two or three times. Leave the washed berries to drain in a colander.
If you are using frozen berries, you don’t need to rinse them.
Mix the vinegar and the sugar in a saucepan with 200 ml of water and heat till the sugar dissolves. Cool this mixture completely.
Place the berries in the 2 liter sterilized jar and pour the sweet vinegar.
Seal the jar and leave it undisturbed for 4 weeks.
Pour the berries into a jelly bag over a bowl and leave them to drain overnight.
Bottle, seal and store.
10. Sea Buckthorn Bath Powder Recipe
Now, I will conclude with the last of the top 10 Sea Buckthorn recipes as a cosmetic.
Let us discuss the various skin care benefits of this oil in greater detail in the coming section.
Fantastic Skin Care Benefits of Sea Buckthorn Oil
Sea buckthorn oil is well-known for its various health benefits, it is especially useful as a skin care product. Because its 100% natural, this oil is free from the side-effects of synthetic products and can be safely used even on sensitive skin.
Some of the benefits of using sea buckthorn oil in regular skin care are:
Sea buckthorn oil acts as a natural moisturizer, anti-aging , natural sun protector and for eczema relief to name a few amongst other benefits. Because of all these added benefits, Sea Buckthorn oil is used widely in cosmetics like face creams, body lotions, shampoos etc.
Now lets dive into the recipe.
Recipe for Bath Powder
I love making my own bath powders and using them instead of shower gels, although I use only organic and clean cosmetics.
Remember we collected the fruit pulp while juicing the berries for the various recipes earlier. Well, I air dried all the peels at 45 deg using hot air function in my oven. And whenever it was possible under the sun (Nothing like adding some natural Vit D). Here is how you make it.
Ingredients
2 cups of dried Sea Buckthorn berry pulp
1 cup of rolled oats
20 drops of essential oils ( I used Orange essential oil)
Method
Blitz the dried peels together with the oats to a fine powder.
Transfer to a bowl, and add 20 drops of essential oils and then mix well.
Store in air tight jars and use as needed.
Because this post has gone long enough I will stop with this. I have tried to collect as many recipes as I could to compile into this post. Let me know if there are any other ways to use up these wonder berries. I would love to hear from you and thanks for reading.
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