One Ingredient Homemade Balsamic Glaze Reduction

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What is Balsamic Glaze made of?

When you are buying balsamic glaze at the store, you will find that they often have a myriad of ingredients added to thicken, sweeten, or make it last at room temperature. The magic of one ingredient balsamic glaze is that it is a simple reduction, not a thickened and sweetened balsamic vinegar. By reducing balsamic vinegar we get the consistency and potency that we want without the extra filler ingredients.

Balsamic Vinegar

There are different types of balsamic vinegar that vary in taste, texture, and price. The highest quality is Traditional Balsamic Vinegar (Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale), aged for at least 12 years, and it’s typically used in small amounts as a finishing touch. Then there’s Balsamic Vinegar of Modena (Aceto Balsamico di Modena), which is less aged and more affordable, making it great for everyday cooking.

It is the balsamic vinegar of Modena that I use in salad dressings and for creating this balsamic glaze. It is affordable, full of flavor, and definitely good enough quality for my purposes.

Why Does Balsamic Glaze Taste So Good?

To understand that, we have to understand its single ingredient, balsamic vinegar. Whole grapes are pressed with their seeds and stems to produce grape juice. This grape juice, which is full of natural sugar, is then cooked to reduce it by about half before it is left to ferment. The reduced and fermented grape juice becomes your balsamic vinegar, naturally sweet, and tangy.

When we take the balsamic vinegar and reduce it further, we are boiling off some of the water but also boiling off the vinegar’s fermented liquids. You will notice the smell of the moisture coming out of the vinegar while it is simmering, this is some of the strong vinegar taste leaving while the sugars from the fruit condense, amplifying the taste of the resulting glaze.

What Do You Use Balsamic Glaze For?

Balsamic Glaze is a condiment that can be used to add a sweet and tangy pop of flavor to your meals. Use it as a salad dressing, on your cooked vegetables, on your pizza and flatbread, or even with dessert!

Salad Dressing

A little goes a long way in this application, but the balsamic glaze is an excellent stand-in for your European-style vinegar-based salad dressings like Italian, French, and Vinegrette. Most of these dressings are a combination of oil, vinegar, and spices, with sweeteners to balance them. Not only do you need less glaze to dress your salad, but balsamic glaze lacks the oil component of these salad dressings which makes up a large portion of their calories. The result is a tangy sweet dressing that adds a pop of flavor with far fewer calories.

Special mention goes to drizzling balsamic glaze on Caprese salad. They are literally a match made in heaven.

Cooked Vegetables

When you cook vegetables you get a whole cornucopia of flavors that the fresh vegetables don’t have like umami, savory, and in some cases sweet. Adding a drizzle of balsamic glaze over your cooked vegetables can amplify and add balance to the amazing flavors you already have.

I like balsamic glaze on roasted Brussels sprouts for the sweetness that it offers, but it works equally well on a sweet cooked vegetable like carrots, where it’s the tangy flavor that helps create balance.

Flat Bread and Pizza

We can’t talk about balsamic glaze without mentioning flatbread or pizza. Both have a special place in our home and balsamic glaze usually accompanies the meal.

One of my favorite flatbread recipes has pan-seared chicken with garlic, shallot, and caper pan sauce used as the sauce on the flatbread. Topped with the chicken, caramelized onions, and sliced granny smith green apples. Talk about a punch of flavor and texture, and somehow it’s just not quite the same without a drizzle of balsamic glaze.

Dessert

Wait, you use balsamic vinegar in your dessert?

Vanilla ice cream is sweet and creamy which makes it go exceptionally well with brownies, apple tarts, or fresh berries. It is for the same reason that it goes well on the side of these great desserts, that balsamic glaze goes well on a simple scoop of vanilla ice cream.

It may not be for everyone, but the tangy fruity notes do something amazing with the pure creamy sweetness of good vanilla ice cream.

Balsamic Glaze Directions

This recipe is far from rocket science, but there is some nuance to it. The last thing you want to do is burn your vinegar and ruin the taste or over-reduce it and end up with the consistency of molasses.

Pour your vinegar into a cold saucepan and place it over medium heat. Note how high up the vinegar goes in the pan and bring it to a low simmer while stirring. Reduce heat to maintain a low simmer and continue stirring until the vinegar has reduced by about 1/3.

Some recipes call for other ingredients like honey or to reduce it by half. I find that with good quality balsamic vinegar, reducing it by a third and not sweetening it is best.

How To Know When It’s Done

While you are reducing the vinegar, it can be hard to tell its consistency because the heat makes it feel and appear thin in the pan. Take a small spoonful of vinegar every 5 minutes or so and pour it out on a plate to cool. After a minute or two it will have cooled and you can check the consistency. You want it to coat the back of a spoon like maple syrup but not quite be as thick as honey and certainly not as thick as molasses.

Another method to easily check how much your vinegar has reduced is to measure it. Pour the vinegar into an appropriately sized heat-resistant measuring device and check the volume. I started with a liter of balsamic vinegar plus about 100ml from another container. This reduced by about 1/3 to 800ml.

Storing Balsamic Glaze

If stored in the refrigerator, you can keep balsamic glaze for a very long time, some say as long as 2 years or more. I know we will use up this quantity of glaze in the next year, so I am happy to store it in the fridge without fear of it spoiling.

A mason jar works fine for storage, but to make the use of the glaze extremely easy, invest in some squeeze bottles. I use these OXO squeeze bottles, but there are plenty of other options on the market. I have collected a dozen of these bottles over time and use them for soy sauce, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, balsamic glaze, honey, etc. This allows me to buy these commonly used items in bulk, but have a usable container on hand instead of fighting with a Costco-sized oil or honey container.