Name: Homemade Pancake Syrup (Easy 10-Minute Recipe)
Cook time: 10 min
Ingredients: 2 cups brown sugar; 1 cup water; 1/2 cup butter; 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla or maple extract

Recipe

Make homemade pancake syrup with brown sugar, butter, and vanilla in just 10 minutes. Keep a batch ready for your weekend breakfasts.

This homemade pancake syrup is rich, buttery, and full of warm brown sugar and vanilla flavor. It cooks into a thick, glossy syrup that tastes like the old-school pancake syrup, only so much better because it’s homemade.

a stack of pancakes being drizzled with syrup

Brown Sugar Pancake Syrup

Laura fuentes holding a skillet of food standing in front of a blue door

My auntie, who also taught me to make homemade pancakes, showed me how to make syrup with brown sugar after I told her how much maple syrup my kids poured over their pancakes and how expensive it was getting.

I first shared her recipe here in 2014, and it's been a reader favorite ever since. It's easy and affordable to make, but what I love most is the old-school buttery sweetness that reminds me of the pancake syrup you'd get at a diner or find in Grandma's kitchen.

Homemade Pancake Syrup Ingredients

It's made with water and brown sugar as the base (honey won’t work), butter for flavor and a pourable texture (viscosity), and a little vanilla (or maple extract) for flavor.

Homemade Pancake Syrup Without Maple

As the brown sugar and water simmer, they reduce into a rich, pourable syrup with a deep caramel-like sweetness. Butter makes it silky and gives it that classic pancake-syrup flavor, while vanilla rounds everything out. If you want a maple flavor, swap the vanilla extract for maple extract.

How to Make Pancake Syrup

You’ll find a step-by-step short video in the recipe card. Here is an overview of what you’ll be doing:

Combine sugar and water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil.
Then reduce the heat and simmer to reduce the liquid.
Add the butter and stir to dissolve it while it’s simmering.
Turn off the heat and add the vanilla or maple flavoring.

small saucepan with brown sugar and water simmering to make pancake syrup

Serve it drizzled over your pancakes or waffles, or use it to dip French toast sticks.

How to Store It

An old maple syrup bottle or a lidded jar is perfect for storing leftovers. Once it’s cooled, transfer it into the bottle and keep it in the fridge for up to a month. It needs refrigeration because of the butter. Reheat as much as you need in a microwave-safe cup in 15-second increments.

Best Pancake Recipes

According to my readers, these are the best pancake recipes. Start with the fluffy recipe, or a stack of chocolate chip pancakes, the disappearing banana pancakes, or everyone’s favorite blueberry pancakes recipe.

Homemade Pancake Syrup (Easy 10-Minute Recipe)

Servings: 16

Cook Time: 10

Make homemade pancake syrup with brown sugar, butter, and vanilla in just 10 minutes. Keep a batch ready for your weekend breakfasts.

5 from 73 votes

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Watch how it’s made:

Ingredients

2 cups brown sugar
1 cup water
½ cup butter
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla or maple extract

Instructions

Make the syrup:

In a medium saucepan, add the brown sugar and water. Heat them over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 4 minutes to reduce it.
Add the butter and stir for about 2 minutes, until it has melted into the brown syrup. Turn off the heat, add the vanilla or maple extract, and stir.
Enjoy warm drizzled over pancakes or waffles.

Storage & future use:

Allow the brown sugar syrup to cool down. Then, transfer it into a jar or syrup bottle. Refrigerate for up to a month.
To reheat, microwave in 15-second intervals if the jar or bottle is microwave-safe, or heat the amount you need in a small pryrex measuring cup. You can also warm it up in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring until the syrup is heated through.

Notes

Both light and dark brown sugar work for this recipe. The difference between the two is the amount (%) of molasses; the darker one has more and yields a richer/deeper syrup flavor.

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