recipes

DIY Homemade Honey Sticks In 3 Simple Steps

Apr 24, 2023 Admin

Homemade honey sticks - homemade honey sticks on a table with a teapot and lemon wedges

Why Pay Extra For Convenience?

The “OGT Team” has a meeting every Monday morning at our studio, where we organize our editorial calendar and brainstorm ideas for posts. These meetings are very serious, and we never get sidetracked into discussions that have nothing to do with the blog. ;-) During one such recent discussion, someone happened to mention that they have seen honey sticks popping up just about everywhere lately.

Homemade honey sticks - closeup of a honey stick held in a hand

The convenience of honey sticks is pretty obvious. You get a single-serving of honey that’s easy to squeeze into a drink or onto a snack, and it’s virtually mess-free! But as with anything that’s packaged as a single-serving, it comes at a price. You can find honey sticks online or in stores for about $.25 each, but even that seems pretty steep for a bit of honey in a straw, right? This got us wondering if we could come up with a way to make honey sticks at home. And that leads us to today’s post!

Make Your Own Honey Sticks Easily

It’s actually quite easy to make your own homemade honey sticks. Not only is it quite inexpensive to do, but you can also choose what kind of honey goes into them. Your favorite local, raw honey? That lavender-infused honey you’ve had your eye on? An interesting hot honey? Why not try them all?? :-) Here’s how you can make DIY or flavored honey sticks at home.

Homemade honey sticks - bottle of flavored honey and a bottle of raw unfiltered honey

How To Make Homemade Honey Sticks

Supplies:

Honey
Squeeze bottle
Clear straws
Heat sealer*

*Note: There are a few different options here. We borrowed my daughter Britta’s FoodSaver machine to use for this project, and it worked perfectly. If you don’t have access to a vacuum sealer, handheld heat sealers are relatively inexpensive!

Directions:

Start by gathering your supplies together. What kind of straws you choose to use is totally up to you. We used large, thick smoothie-style straws, which we liked because they hold quite a bit more honey than a standard drink straw. (If your heat sealer isn’t very powerful, it may not generate enough heat to seal such a thick straw. In that case, a thinner straw would probably be your best bet.)

Homemade honey sticks- using a Food Saver to seal the end of a length of plastic straw

Step 1: Seal One End

Once you’ve chosen your straws, put one end of one of your straws into your vacuum sealer (or heat sealer). Position the end on the heat sealing strip, close the lid, and turn the handle down to lock it into place.

The FoodSaver we used has two buttons: Vacuum/Seal and Seal. In order to avoid a sticky mess in your vacuum sealer, you’ll want to choose the seal-only option. :-) We just pressed Seal, and voila! Our straw was ready for honey.

Homemade honey sticks - bottle of honey in a microwave

Step 2: Fill The Straw

Before filling your straws, we highly recommend putting the honey into a squeeze bottle (the kind you use for condiments). It makes the process super quick and easy, and probably a lot less messy.

It also helps to heat the squeeze bottle of honey in the microwave or under running warm water for a few seconds. This just helps to make your honey more pourable and easier to work with.

Homemade honey sticks - filling a piece of straw held at an angle using a squeeze bottle of honey

When your squeeze bottle is ready, put the tip into the open end of the straw. Holding the straw and the squeeze bottle at an angle, gently squeeze the honey so that it slides down the side of the straw towards the sealed end. If you hold the squeeze bottle and the straw straight upright, you’ll most likely end up with air bubbles in your honey. (Air bubbles aren’t necessarily bad, they just take up space, which means there will be less space in the straw for honey.)

Homemade honey sticks - honey stick with one end still open.

Fill the straw with honey until the honey is about an inch from the end of the straw.

Homemade honey sticks - sealing open end of honey-filled straw with Food Saver

Step 3: Seal The Other End

Then place the open end of the straw into the vacuum sealer and seal it closed. That’s it!

The amount of honey that each honey stick contains will vary based on the kind of straw you choose. If you’re curious, just squeeze the honey out of one of your sticks and measure how much honey was in it. Then you can decide if you want more or less honey in your honey sticks! If you want more, use a bigger straw. If you want less, use a smaller straw, or cut your straws down to the appropriate size.

Homemade honey sticks - homemade honey sticks on a yellow and white striped piece of fabric

How Much Honey Per Stick? It Pays To Know!

The advantage of knowing how much honey is in each stick is that you can use them in recipes. Squeezing a honey stick is a lot less messy than measuring out honey with a tablespoon! Or you could also make it so that each of your honey sticks holds the perfect amount to sweeten up a cup of tea. They’re easy to take on the go, so you can have your favorite honey at the ready anytime!

Homemade honey sticks - bundle of homemade honey sticks tied up with twine and labeled with round tag

I think these honey sticks would make such a cute gift — especially for the tea lover in your life! :-) Make several honey sticks, with either high-quality local honey or a mix of different flavored honeys to make things more interesting! Tie the sticks together with some twine, then wrap the sticks up with a cute mug and a nice box of tea. What an easy-to-make and heartfelt gift!

More Sweet Ideas!

What’s your favorite way to eat honey?

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