How to Make Date Paste
on Sep 17, 2019, Updated Jul 18, 2024
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Learn how to make date paste to use a natural sweetener, a dip or spread or in baking recipes.
Date paste is sweet, creamy, delicious and easy to make! You can use date paste as a spread or dip, in baking or as a natural sweetener wherever needed.
Recipe Features
- Dietary Features: Vegan, oil-free, no added sugar.
- Just one simple ingredient: dates!
- Delicious for smoothies, pancakes, oatmeal, toast and for sweetening baking and other recipes.
- Stir into coffee for an alternative to sugar.
- Stores well in the fridge or can be frozen.
How to Make this Recipe
Start with 1 cup packed of pitted dates. This should be about 250 grams. Really push them in there so you have a full, packed cup.
Step 1. Soak the Dates
Soak the dates in “just boiled” water for 1-2 hours.
After they’ve soaked, scoop out at least 1/4 cup of the soaking water and then drain the dates. There’s no need to dry them completely. Just give them a quick shake. If they’re a bit wet, that’s totally fine.
Why soak the dates? Soaking makes them extra soft and gooey and makes blending a breeze! If you have very soft dates to begin with, such as fresh medjool dates, you can probably get away with skipping the soaking and just blending them with a bit of warm water. I always soak them though.
Step 2. Blend the Dates
Add the dates and reserved 1/4 cup soaking water to a blender or food processor and mix until smooth. I like to add a little pinch of sea salt too but it’s optional.
You can make date paste in a food processor or blender or by using an immersion blender. A powerful single-serve blender cups works best for small batches and a food processor or high-speed blender works best for large batches.
I make date paste using 1 cup of dates in my Vitamix and it works just fine but it does take some stopping and scraping down the sides repeatedly since their isn’t enough content to really catch the blades.
Once blended, it can enjoyed it right away but it gets even better after sitting.
Date paste becomes darker, thicker and sweeter after chilling in the fridge for a couple hours.
Best Dates to Use
Date paste can be made with any kind of dates. Medjool dates are the sweetest and softest but since the dates are soaked before blending, any date works well.
I really like sayer dates for this recipe. They’re soft, gooey and extra sweet. Deglect noor, bahri and honey dates all work as well.
How to Use Date Paste
There are many delicious ways you can use date paste. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- spread on vegan pancakes, waffles or toast
- sweeten hot chocolate
- sweeten homemade golden milk
- sweeten homemade almond milk, oat milk or hemp seed milk
- sweeten a matcha latte
- spread it on muffins, cookies or homemade bars
- as a dip for sliced apple of strawberries
- blended into smoothies
- added to stovetop oatmeal or overnight oats
- used in baking as an alternative to maple syrup, honey or agave
- replace applesauce in recipes
- add a little coconut milk to thin, a pinch of salt and some vanilla to make date caramel
- spread on baked sweet potato or used in these acorn squash or sweet potato breakfast bowls
- sweeten this pumpkin mousse
Storing
- Store date paste in the fridge in a sealed container for up to 2 weeks.
- Date paste can also be frozen up to 3 months and thawed in the fridge.
Did you try this recipe? I’d love to hear about it! Scroll down to the comment section to leave a star rating and review.
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How to Make Date Paste
Ingredients
- 1 cup packed, pitted dates (250 g pitted)
- hot water
- 1/4 tsp sea salt, optional
Instructions
- Add the pitted dates to a bowl and pour in about 1 cup of just boiled water or enough to cover them.
- Soak for 1-2 hours. At room temperature is fine.
- Scoop out at least 1/4 cup of the soaking liquid and set aside. Strain the dates, giving them a quick shake then adding to a blender or food processor.
- Add the 1/4 cup reserved water and if desired, a pinch of sea salt. Blend the dates until smooth. Depending on your blender, this may take a few minutes as you’ll have to stop and scrape the sides down as you go. If you have a powerful single-serve blender, it works better than a large blender container. A food processor works well too.
- Scoop the date paste into a sealable container and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Do you think this would be good in between a cake? I was thinking a layer of cake, date paste, cake, and chocolate frosting, but I don’t know if I thought of something good or gross!
It would be great! It would add somewhat of a caramel flavour.
Can I use Prunes instead of dates to do this recipe?
You could but it will definitely have a prune taste instead of the caramel-like taste of dates! Up to you.
If I want to use this date paste to replace maple syrup in a recipe, do I use it in equal amounts?
It depends on the recipe. For baking, you most likely need to make some adjustments to the recipe. For sweetening in general, you can usually use it 1:1 for maple syrup.
Thankyou for a great recipie i so needed this