For a clean, bright smelling home just whip up a batch of Pressure Cooker Lemon Extract! This extract gives a perfect lemon-y punch to any dish.
Caution: Never make Extract in a stovetop pressure cooker or near an open flame. My recipes are written for electric pressure cookers only. Always use a Natural Release, never a quick release.
For more information on making Pressure Cooker Extract, see this article: Instant Pot Vanilla Extract Research
This Pressure Cooker Lemon Extract takes the cake for “Prettiest Extract”. I mean just look at the bright yellow, lemony sunshine in a jar! Super fragrant, happy, refreshing, Lemon Extract!
Now the first time I made this it was bitter and soapy tasting. The reason being that I was using a very dull vegetable peeler and was getting a lot of the white, bitter pith with my strips of peel.
Then came along this heavenly fruit peeler, and my zest peeling abilities have gotten seriously fierce!
Compared to commercial lemon extracts, that to me taste and smell very artificial, this Pressure Cooker Lemon Extract gives an incredible punch of fragrant lemon to whipped cream, ice cream, Berry Lemon Compote (so good mixed in yogurt!), and this delicious lemon curd by my dear friend Barbara at Pressure Cooking Today.
I went a bit heavier on the amount of lemon peel that I put in this extract compared to other recipes I’ve seen and I think it’s well worth it considering how cheap it is to make it.
Now go make your house smell like citrus heaven!
Be sure and check out the other extracts: Cinnamon, Vanilla, Peppermint, Maple, and Almond.
And just look what my sister Cami made up for us! Free printable extract labels for all the extracts posted about here.
Enjoy!
PrintPressure Cooker Lemon Extract
Pressure Cooker Lemon Extract is bright, powerful, and will make your house smell squeaky clean.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup 1x
- Category: Extract
- Method: Pressure cooker
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- Zest of 3 medium size lemons (try not to get any white pith)
- About 1 cup Vodka (I like red label Smirnoff Vodka 80 proof)
Instructions
- Place the lemon zest in a pint size Mason jar and add vodka, leaving 1 ½-2 inches of headspace. Top with a canning lid and ring and barely tighten.
- Add 1 cup of water to the pressure cooker pot and place trivet inside. Put the Mason jar on the trivet. Secure the lid and turn pressure release knob to a sealed position. Cook at high pressure for 30 minutes.
- When cooking is complete, use a natural release.
- Carefully remove the Mason jar, swirl it lightly, and place on a cooling rack overnight.
- Once cooled, top with a pourable lid and use in all your favorite recipes that call for lemon extract or lemon juice.
Notes
- Caution: Never make Extract in a stovetop pressure cooker or near an open flame. My recipes are written for electric pressure cookers only. Always use a Natural Release, never a quick release.
- Alcohol smell may be strong at first but will diminish over a week or two. If still overpowering at that point, return it to the pressure cooker for another 30 minutes.
- The pressure cooker will fit up to three jars at a time, so feel free to double or triple the recipe.
Keywords: instant pot lemon extract, homemade extract
Can I use quart size jars or are they too big for the cooker?
Barbara, Quart size are too tall. Pint or half pints for sure!
I realized that after I asked. I’ve made both vanilla and orange and today I’m making lemon. The orange and vanilla still taste a bit like alcohol after two weeks. Is this a normal taste? I’ve never really tried extract straight. I figure if I let them stand longer the flavor may mellow. I followed the instructions so is this normal or do you have any ideas what may have happened
Barabara, it will always taste like alcohol straight out of the bottle, but adding it to other things, you shouldn’t notice the alcohol taste at all. In fact, if you didn’t taste any alcohol straight from the jar, I would worry it had evaporated too much. You want it to maintain an alcohol percentage safe enought to store it long term. Enjoy it! I’m excited to try orange!
I have a couple of questions:
1. How long is the shelf life of the extract?
2. Does it need to be refrigerated?
3. Do you have to keep the peels in the liquid? I would like to transfer to small bottles as gifts. Do I strain it?
Thank you.
Sara, When I researched this, the answers were all over the map. I decided to leave the peel in for 3 months and had the extract used up within 6 months. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated. If you’re gifting it, you can definitely strain it or put a few slices of lemon peel in it to make it extra cute :). The flavor will continue to infuse the longer the peel is in there as well.
Thank you so much! These are gifts. I think my family will love them!!
Sara, my mom loves all things lemon. The smell of this extract alone is a gift to her 🙂
Can you make vanilla extract and lemon extract at the same time in separate jars?
Linda, Hmm…good question. My first thought was, “I think it will be fine” but there might be a little crossover. I highly doubt it would be anything significant though where the flats are on the jars.
I made my first batch and followed your directions exactly but lost about 1/4 of the alcohol. Maybe it has to do with how much I tightened the lid…you said “barely tighten”…when I do canning, sometimes there is siphoning due to opening the pot too quickly, but I allowed it to cool completely (hours) before opening it. What do you think happened?
Erica, I barely tighten my lid, but that’s hard to express to people because it’s so subjective! It does sound like your lid was too loose for it to evaporate that much. You could top it off if you like, it would need to sit for awhile to get strong again though.