Passionate Homemaking

Living simply in order to give generously

Maple Syrup vs. Sorghum Syrup

from the kitchen Add comments

In response to the sig­nif­i­cant rise in price of maple syrup, my nat­ural sweet­ener choice for pan­cakes, french toast, and the like, I have been on the look­out and search for a cheaper and yet nat­ural alternative.

Maple syrup, accord­ing to Nour­ish­ing Tra­di­tions by Sally Fallon, is “the con­cen­trated sap of huge decid­u­ous trees, maple syrup is rich in trace min­er­als, brought up from below ground by the tree’s deep roots.”

Maple syrup has such won­der­ful taste and is much more healthy than any store bought brand syrup, which are loaded with sugar. Due to a lack of supply this year, the price has gone up $6-7 dol­lars per quart from my local Trader Joe’s, leav­ing us with a total cost of $16.99 or $17.99 per quart (depend­ing upon which grade you choice). Wow!

Enter…Sorghum Syrup (also known as sorghum molasses)! Sorghum, also accord­ing to NT, is “a sweet­ener once pop­u­lar in the South­ern Unites States, sorghum syrup is made from sweet sorghum, a grain related to millet that grows on woody stalks to a height of 15 feet…Sorghum syrup con­tains B vit­a­mins and min­er­als like iron, cal­cium and phos­pho­rous. It can be used in place of maple syrup.”

Hmm…that last phrase caught my eye. Sorghum syrup is avail­able through Azure Stan­dard (my nat­ural bulk food resource) for $6.95 per quart! That is a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence. being only a third the price of maple syrup.

Many Sorghum Uses

Sorghum has a slightly molasses flavor but is not the same as molasses (molasses is a by-​product of the sugar indus­try), and we have found many uses for it already:

  • Com­bine with a little butter on top of bis­cuits or corn­bread - gives a won­der­ful almost but­ter­scotch flavor, as my hus­band described it.
  • Heat and serve over pan­cakes, french toast, waf­fles, etc and the result is a won­der­ful gin­ger­bread flavor! Some brands are stronger than others, so after some exper­i­ment­ing I have found this one works better in com­bi­na­tion with a little maple syrup and water to stretch the maple syrup for these uses. I use approx­i­mately 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1/8 cup sorghum and 1/4 cup water. Heat on stove and serve! Yum!
  • Use to sweeten baked beans, BBQ sauce (I came across these recipes while writ­ing this post and I can’t wait to try them!)
  • Makes yummy caramel pop­corn - use in replace­ment of corn syrup!
  • Ginger Snap cookies
  • For many more recipes for use in main dishes, desserts, breads, can­dies, etc. visit here.
  • Can be used in replace­ment of maple syrup, honey & molasses in all your baking! Here is a help­ful guide­line:
    - Honey and Molasses one to on basis in most cases. In baking recipes that call for molasses, sub­sti­tute sorghum but reduce the sugar by 1/3. This should be done, because sorghum is sweeter than molasses.
    - Ordi­nary sugar: Increase the amount of sorghum by 1/3 over the amount of sugar called for and decrease the amount of liquid (water and/or milk) by this same amount.

Other Sources:

Barry Farm Foods

That’s my frugal tip for the day!

I would love to hear if anyone else has exper­i­mented with sorghum! Please share!


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16 Responses to “Maple Syrup vs. Sorghum Syrup”

  1. Kate Says:

    We use honey to sweeten pan­cakes and what not (have to just use a little) . What better sweet­ener than honey? 100% nat­ural.

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on August 1st, 2008:

    Honey is very sweet and thus would be too much for our tastes. I use it mainly for baking. Pure sorghum & maple syrup as described above are 100% nat­ural as well. If you prefer honey, make sure it is raw honey, which would be 100% nat­ural. Raw honey is nor­mally more expen­sive than sorghum as well.

    [Reply]

    Kate replied on August 1st, 2008:

    Oh def­i­nitely raw honey. We don’t use a lot any­ways. Mabe a tea­spoon or two. I use honey in other things, like dress­ings and stuff, so it’s like a staple. if I use it in other things, it doesn’t seem like I’m spend­ing too much.

    [Reply]

  2. lylah ledner Says:

    well…if that’s NOT some great research….thanks woman for the time you take to teach your read­ers :-)…and i like the price….i gasped this week at my grade b traders syrup….as i put the little sweetie in my cart…so, thanks…for the sug­ges­tion.

    love to u….’me’

    [Reply]

  3. Jennifer Says:

    Yes, please share your tips every­one! I’ve just joined up with Azure Stan­dard and I’d love to find a cheaper alter­na­tive to pure maple syrup. The price hasn’t gone up much at Costco, but shelling out $20 for the maple syrup at one time is a huge ding in my weekly budget.

    Love love LOVE your blog, by the way!!

    [Reply]

  4. Melissa Says:

    This is great! I was at the store yes­ter­day and I wanted to buy some maple syrup but I couldn’t dish out the $16.99 for it…wow. I will have to give this a try! Thanks for shar­ing!

    [Reply]

  5. Heather Says:

    Can you find organic sorghum? Where? Thanks!

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on August 1st, 2008:

    Yes, I found one source here, although the price was sig­nif­i­cantly higher than the Azure option. Becom­ing cer­ti­fied organic is a expen­sive process, so small farms cannot often afford it, but if you research their prac­tices, often they are as high of qual­ity as organic. Azure is a highly rep­utable source.

    [Reply]

  6. autumn sager Says:

    Inter­est­ing stuff! How does the sorghum effect your blood sugar, as I was told by a friend who loves maple syrup, that maple syrup is elim­i­nated from the body before it com­pletely breaks down into sugar. Is sorghum 100% nat­ural like maple syrup?

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on August 1st, 2008:

    Yes, sorghum is 100% nat­ural just like pure maple syrup and raw honey. It is not sugar so I don’t believe it would have a great effect on your blood sugar levels.

    [Reply]

  7. Brenda@CoffeeTeaBooks&Me Says:

    I grew up with mom using sorghum. I don’t remem­ber ever using real maple syrup until I mar­ried. It was either real sorghum or Aunt Jemima. :)

    Mom always mixed it with room tem­per­a­ture butter before using on pan­cakes and such. (Although we lived in the Mid­west, she was from Ken­tucky.)

    [Reply]

  8. Lanette Says:

    FYI - Half-​gallon jugs of grade A maple syrup are on sale at Costco for $9.97, after jump­ing around between $15 to $21 for the past year. They’re in #7 plas­tic jugs, though, for those of you who avoid that. We’re still waf­fling about plas­tic and bought our first maple syrup in a year.

    [Reply]

  9. Brenda Says:

    THANK YOU!!! I had switched, with much sad­ness, from Maple syrup to Log Cabin, or what­ever syrup was at the store, because of the price. But I can’t bring myself to serve it. Thank Heav­ens I came across this, and thank you for post­ing it. I just thought it was one of those things I’d have to give up as prices rise (there have been many things…)

    Being a South­erner, I never knew about Maple Syrup until I was an adult, but I got hooked. Just in time for it to be far too expen­sive for us to afford. We have local cane boils around here all the time, and I often won­dered about cane syrup instead. But now I know - sorghum!!

    I’m am SO trying it out.

    [Reply]

  10. Samara Root Says:

    Thanks for the tip Lind­say! I couldn’t believe the price increase @ Trader Joe’s!
    I love sorghum…it tastes so good…but I have never thought of replac­ing maple syrup with sorghum…I’ll try it now though!

    Let us know how the cam­pout went.
    Samara

    [Reply]

  11. Missy Says:

    Great tip, thanks. I always have maple extract so I might try and flavor some for pan­cakes!

    [Reply]

  12. Beth Says:

    We had tried the sorghum last year, but my kids didn’t like the flavor. So we went back to maple syrup. The price dif­fer­ence at the local Piggly Wiggly wasn’t that not­i­ca­ble. So we stick to real maple syrup for pan­cakes, honey for sweet­en­ing and molas­sis for making home made graham crack­ers.

    Bless­ings, Beth Ann

    [Reply]

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