20 plus herbal tincture recipes (for homemade herbal medicine)
Herbal tincture recipes allow you to take charge of your own herbal health at home. Make your own potent, shelf-stable herbal tinctures with fresh or dried plant material and high-proof alcohol using the recipes in this all-encompassing roundup of powerful herbal remedies.
Making tinctures at home using fresh or dried plant material, either the flowers, leaves, stems, or roots—or sometimes a combination of all four, is an incredibly easy and rewarding process that comes together in fewer than 10 minutes.
Once assembled, you’ll need to wait 6 to 8 weeks before the tincture is ready to be used, but during this time your only obligation will be to give the steeping herb and alcohol mixture a gentle shake every day or couple of days.
When the tincture is ready, you’ll have a potent form of plant medicine that can be used for all manner of ailments. Whether you need a tincture for cold and flu season, hormone imbalances, wound healing, stomach issues, or sleep, you’ll find a recipe below (if not more than one!) that caters to the needs of yourself and your family.
Making Dandelion Tincture
How to Make a Herbal Tincture
An herbal tincture is made by extracting the active medicinal compounds from plant matter using alcohol as a solvent. Another common type of herbal extract is called a herbal glycerite, which uses vegetable glycerine in place of alcohol to extract the plant compounds.
Tinctures can be made with fresh or dried plant matter and there are advantages to both mediums. Fresh herbs are very potent but should be used as soon as possible after they’ve been picked—the longer you wait the more prone they are to spoilage. For dried herbs, either dry them yourself or buy them from a reputable source with good turnover (I’m a big fan of Mountain Rose Herbs and Starwest Botanicals).
Making Chamomile Glycerite. A gentle herbal remedy.
To make an herbal tincture, simply add the plant material to a jar and cover with vodka. Any clean-tasting, high-proof alcohol will work for making tinctures. I tend to use Smirnoff because it’s cost-effective and doesn’t have an unpleasant lingering taste. Apply the lid and then place the herb/vodka mixture in a cool, dry place away from direct light.
Give the jar a shake every couple of days (you don’t have to be strict about a set time) and let the ingredients steep for 6 to 8 weeks. Pour the tincture through a fine mesh strainer lined with a cheesecloth to remove all of the plant material and then decant into a bottle with a dropper using a funnel. Always use amber glass bottles for storing tinctures.
For more detailed information about this process, check out my comprehensive guide to making herbal tinctures at home.
Making Lavender tincture
Herbal Tincture Recipes
For this roundup, I’ve included tincture recipes for both internal and external health issues. In most cases, I’ve provided a resource for ordering quality dried plant material if fresh isn’t available (for some herb varieties, such as St. John’s wort, an effective tincture can only be made with freshly picked flowers).
Astragalus Tincture
Astragalus is an adaptogenic herb that is taken to help the body respond to and adapt to stress. When made into a tincture, astragalus root helps support immune function, increases energy levels, and could potentially improve cardiovascular health because of its rich flavonoid content.
You can grow astragalus in your garden as long as you have a warm growing season where the plant can be kept outdoors. If you grow astragalus in a container and you have cold winters, simply move the pot indoors to a sunny location over the winter. For most people, ordering Astragalus root online is the best way to get it, but you can also get ready-made Astragalus extract.
Astragalus Plant
Bee Balm Tincture
A favorite tincture when cold and flu season rolls around, bee balm forms the base of this multi-purpose herbal remedy. Bee balm contains a surplus of thymol, a plant compound that has antiseptic properties, hence its common usage as a remedy against sniffles and sore throats.
Because of its antimicrobial properties, bee balm has historically been used to treat diarrhea, nausea, sore throat, and fever. This tincture is also effective at relieving menstrual cramps and relieving anxiety in children and adults.
Bee balm can be cultivated or it can be found growing in the wild in many parts of the United States. There are many different varieties of bee balm to choose from with the most common wild variety being pink bee balm.
Black Walnut Tincture
This somewhat unusual tincture uses the outer husk of black walnuts as a source for its medicinal benefits. Black walnut is one of the only land-based sources of iodine, a nutrient that is typically found in dairy, eggs, and seaweed.
Black walnut tincture has natural anti-parasitic properties and is taken to help treat intestinal parasites in both humans and animals.
If you live in the Eastern United States then you might already be familiar with the black walnut trees indigenous to your area. The walnuts drop from the trees in early fall, giving you ample opportunity to collect enough to make a tincture. Alternatively, you can order black walnut powder online, and pre-made black walnut extract is available as well.
Our own black walnut tincture, made from fresh black walnut husks.
Burdock Tincture
Burdock tincture is made from the root of the burdock plant and has a long history of use as an herbal remedy. This tincture has potent anti-inflammatory properties and I can personally attest to its ability to shrink flu-related swollen lymph nodes in record time.
Like dandelions, burdock root is a diuretic and it has traditionally been used to cleanse the liver and kidneys. In Chinese medicine, burdock is often combined with other herbs to treat sore throats and other cold symptoms.
I grow my own burdock and harvest the roots in the fall, using only first-year roots for any projects related to herbalism. By the time the second year rolls around, the roots will have used all of their available nutrients to form seeds.
If you cant find burdock root in the wild, it’s dried burdock root is available online for herbal tincture making. (You can also purchase pre-made burdock extract.)
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