Grapefruit Honey Cheong (Syrup)

5 from 48 votes

Jan 29, 2024, Updated Apr 03, 2024

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This grapefruit honey cheong (Korean-style fruit syrup) is insanely delicious & versatile. You can use it for desserts, drinks, dressings, & more!

I LOVE grapefruit flavored anything. This recipe is inspired by a drink I had at Starbucks in Korea last year- the Iced Shaken Honey Ruby Grapefruit Black Tea. Delicious!! But only available at Starbucks in Asia. Womp.

It’s ok though, I recreated it at home and it’s just as delicious. This cheong can be used for much more than just drinks though- it’s truly very versatile!

What is cheong?

Cheong is any type of syrup that is made by combining fruit or vegetables with equal weight in sugar, and letting it sit for up to 3 months depending on a few factors. The purpose is to extract as much flavor from the fruit or vegetable into the syrup.

This is exactly how plum syrup (maesil) is made, which is an ingredient I use in a lot of my cooking. Plum syrup takes about 3 months (or 100 days to be more traditional), but this grapefruit honey syrup only takes about a week.

Ingredients

You only need 3 ingredients!!

Grapefruit- try to find the juiciest, best tasting grapefruit you can. Sometimes they are overly bitter- try to avoid those. Most importantly, remove the white pith as cleanly as possible! This may take some time.
Honey- make sure you have real honey for this, it makes such a difference!
Turbinado sugar- you can use only honey if you prefer, but I think adding a bit of turbinado sugar tastes better, plus it’s a bit more affordable than using all honey. *You can also just use white sugar (but turbinado tastes better imo).

How to make it

Making grapefruit cheong is SUPER easy, but it does take a little bit of time.

Peel the grapefruit- the most important and time consuming part is peeling the grapefruit clean. Make sure to remove all the bitter white pith, and remove the skins/membrane surrounding the pulp. Don’t worry if your pulp breaks apart.
Weigh your ingredients– cheongs are usually a 1:1 ratio of fruit to sugar, just like this one. The ratio gets a little more complicated because I’m using two kinds of sweeteners, but it’s really not that difficult. For the sweetener ratio, I just use half honey and half turbinado sugar.
Combine grapefruit with honey and sugar– mix everything together and break apart the pulp. Tip: use your hands (wearing gloves of course) to squeeze the juice out of the pulp as you are breaking it apart for faster results. Super important- make sure your mixing bowl and spoon are sanitized!
Store in a sanitized, airtight glass jar- store your cheong in a nice big glass jar and put it in the fridge! Let it sit for a week before using it for best results, but you can start using it right way if you want. That’s it!

How to use it

Treat this the same as you would any kind of sweetener- cheong can be used for cooking, baking, cocktails, and non-alcoholic beverages! Here are a few ways I like to use this grapefruit honey syrup:

Cocktails- this is a great ingredient to add to cocktails not only for sweetening, but adding a delicious grapefruit-honey flavor. Make up your own concoction or substitute simple syrup in any cocktail recipe for this grapefruit honey cheong.
Tea– yes, you can use this as a sweetener for your hot tea! This is what my mom has been doing. I gave her a 16 oz jar of this syrup and she finished it within 1 week because she loved it so much! You can also just mix it with hot water.
Cooking/Baking-you can absolutely use this syrup in place of sweeteners in your desserts and savory dishes. If it makes sense to lend a grapefruit-honey flavor to the dish, use it!
Salad dressing- don’t sleep on this one! Grapefruit honey cheong is an amazing addition to salad dressings, especially vinegar/oil based ones.
Non-alcoholic beverages- this is my favorite way to use this cheong. Actually, the reason I made this recipe in the first place was to recreate a drink I tried at Starbucks in Korea! It’s the Iced Shaken Honey Ruby Grapefruit Black Tea. I LOVE this drink, but unfortunately it’s only available at Starbucks in Asia!

More cheong recipes

If you like this recipe, try some of my other easy cheong recipes on the blog!

Korean