How To Soften Dates For Recipes (NO Equipment) – This is a quick method to revive stale, hard dates so that you can use them in smoothies and other recipes.
While I am currently NOT eating dates, I still buy many of them for the other members of my family.
The kids love them in smoothies, in particular, so we keep a batch of softened dates in our fridge.
Oftentimes, the girls will go to make a smoothie recipe with dates, but the dates I’ve bought are hard. If you’ve ever tried to blend a hard or even semi-hard date, you know it doesn’t blend correctly. You end up with tiny bites of date throughout the smoothie instead of a general sweetness.
Well, the method below solves that problem, and you don’t need a food processor or blender to do it!
These days, most people have blenders and processors, but I know for me, it’s so nice to not have to drag it out and clean it.
This is not the most innovative technique, I admit, but it is one I employ quite often, so I thought I’d post it here.
By no means am I making date paste or ‘butterizing’ the dates, rather just employing a quick trick to soften them.
Once they are softened, they can be kept in a glass container for future use. The fridge doesn’t ruin the ‘softness’, which is great, so you don’t have to repeat the process each time!
Here are a few recipes to try!
Date-Sweetened Chocolate Sauce
Banana-Free Chocolate Milkshake
Recipe notes
The boiling process will yield some yummy syrup, which I also keep in the same container.
How To Soften Dates For Recipes (NO Equipment)
Ingredients
- 1 – 1 ¼ pound dates I typically use Medjool
- 1 cup water
Instructions
- Remove seed and 'hat' from all dates.
- Add water then dates into a saucepan.
- Bring them to a boil.
- As soon as it reaches a boil, turn off the burner.
- Let the dates sit for 10-20 minutes in the pan.
- Use as desired or keep in a glass container in your fridge for future use.
Notes
Nutrition
If you have a chance to try this recipe, please leave a star rating and a comment below letting me know how you liked it!
Great tip, Lauren!
This is ingenious. Thanks Lauren!
Great method. I did not think it would be so simple.
Date-butter is great with toast for morning breakfast.
Thanks, Gene!