How to Make Date Paste (only 1 ingredient)

Read the post in: 繁體中文

If you like natural sweetness over almost everything else as I do, you will love Date Paste, a natural sweetener great for substituting sugar. It’s super easy to make and only requires ONE ingredient!

If you know me, you know that I love dates. Not “date” dates, but the naturally sweet middle-eastern dates. (There are sure other types of dates from different countries, but my beloved ones are from Arabia.)

I eat them almost every single day, seriously. They are not only great snacks but also can be a good sugar substitute.

But it’s not easy to use them to directly replace sugar while they are still in their dry-fruit shape. So here is a brilliant idea to make them easier to incorporate with other food: Make them into Date Paste.

This time I’m sharing how I make my date paste and how to use it in other recipes or regular day-to-day food.

THE ONE INGREDIENT YOU NEED FOR DATE PASTE

You probably have known the ingredient (because it’s pretty obvious) but I still want to say it.

Yes, we only need dates.

Well, we’ll also need some water as well, but I assume most of us have easy access to water. So I usually count water in the ingredient list.

Dates are like natural candy. They are sweet but not sickly sweet, which, in my opinion, is what differentiates natural sugar and artificial/refined sugar.

You can use any type of dates or a mix of them, but I’ll suggest using meaty, moist ones, like Medjool dates or Arabian dates.

However, if you don’t have them at hand, that’s fine too. You just need to soak the comparatively drier dates first so it’s easy to work with them.

• 

• 

HOW TO MAKE DATE PASTE

It’s really easy to make date paste as long as you have a food processor or a high-speed blender. All you need to do is:

1. Soak the pitted dates for 3-4 hours.
2. Transfer the dates and the soaking water to a food processor/blender. Blend until smooth. DONE.

Yes, that’s that simple. But the ratio is kind of (almost always) important here. The full recipe below list out the ratio I’ve been tested for several times, and I think it works best for me.

OTHER THOUGHTS

Another thing I want to mention is the final texture of your date paste. Regarding the tool you’re going to use, the final texture might be different.

I’ve made date paste in both my food processor (Magimix) in a blender (Vitamix). Both work perfectly to create a smooth, chuck-free texture.

Yet I just want to give you a headnote that you might want to use a temper if using a blender, or add more water, maybe a dash or two, to help to blend.

Since both Magimix and Vitamix are on the high-end side of their tool-territory, they can blend the dates into a super smooth paste without any other issues.

But if you’re going to use the more budget-friendly ones, the final texture of the date paste might not be as smooth as what the above pictures show.

In this case, I will recommend soaking your dates for a longer period of time, even overnight. (You probably want to put them in the fridge if you choose to do this.)

This way your date paste will be at least as smooth as possible.

HOW TO USE DATE PASTE

Date paste can be easily incorporated into snacks, dessert, and breakfast recipes, like granola bars, overnight oats, smoothie bowl, beverages, etc.

• 

• 

• 

Here are some recipes I’ve used it in the past:

• Vegan Caramel Chocolate Bars (8 ingredients)
• Naturally Sweetened Granola
• Matcha Granola Bars (8 ingredients)
• Vegan Pecan Pie

• 

• 

• 

I also like to add date paste to these recipes:

• Peanut Butter Banana Overnight Oats (5 ingredients)
• Go-to Blueberry Smoothie Bowl
• Bircher Muesli (6 ingredients)
• Perfect Tahini Dressing (4 ingredients)
• Vegan Hot Chocolate (3 ingredients)
• White Bean Cookie Dough (5 ingredients)

I love the sweetness of the dates so much that I can literally just eat this date paste out of a spoon.

Who says simplicity can’t be delicious? (High five if you feel for it the same way as I do.)

---

Other Vegan Recipes:

• Coconut Whipped Cream
• Vegan Banana Cream Pie Cup
• Easy Snicker Bars (Vegan + Wholesome!)

---