Pandan is a commonly used ingredient in Malaysia. From savoury to sweet and from main course items to drinks, there’s definitely a Malaysian recipe out there that uses it. While the flavouring may be easily available from any supermarket, it’s always good to know how to make it form scratch.
Tastes Good and Is Good for You
Pandan is such a wonderful ingredient. If you didn’t know already, it has multiple health and beauty benefits. From lifting your spirits, to detoxifying your body to giving you healthy hair and scalp; it is quite a super ingredient. You can read a little bit more about the benefits here.
More importantly, it tastes good! Adding pandan into your food just lifts up a boring dish. Think of it like vanilla essence. There’s a wonderful smell and a subtle flavour that just makes all the difference.
Pandan Juice and Extract Recipe
Here’s a simple recipe to get pandan juice. It’s easy to make. You can either use freshly squeezed pandan juice to add to drinks for flavour or you can keep it overnight and make natural pandan extract for your food and desserts!
Ingredients
- 60g pandan leaves (about 10 leaves)
- 150g water
Makes about 125g of pandan juice
Method for Pandan Juice
- Use a pair of scissors and cut pandan leaves about 1cm wide. We recommend cutting them straight into the blender.
- Add water.
- Blend until the pandan leaves have shredded as fine as possible.
- Pour leaves and pandan juices into a fine sieve.
- Use the back of a spoon to extract out all juices.
- Your pandan juice is ready!
- Don’t drink this pandan juice straight up – it does not taste great. We have a list of juice recipes with added pandan to make a delicious drink instead!
Method for Pandan Extract
- You can use the exact same steps above to make pandan extract. Just let the juice sit in the refrigerator for 2 or 3 days until the liquids have completely separated. You’ll get a light green liquid which you can still use to make a pandan-based drink, and a dark green sludge at the bottom which is the pandan extract. No need to buy that artificial stuff anymore!
- The less water you use, the more concentrated the colour and flavour of your pandan juice.
