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Ready to make your home smell divine? 10 Natural Simmer Pot Recipes for a Fresh Smelling Home is packed with delicious, easy-to-follow recipes that fill the room with beautiful scents.
What is A Simmer Pot?
A simmer pot is basically a homemade air freshener made from boiling fragrant pieces of fruits, herbs, and other spices in water.
I love that simmer pots are very easy to make, not expensive, and really effective at making your home smell nice. I enjoy having a fresh-smelling home, especially during the winter months when cozying up with a good book and a hot cup of tea or cocoa. An easy way to make your home smell naturally fresh and wonderful is by using a simmer pot filled with aromatic ingredients.
Reasons to Use a Simmer Pot
- A simmer pot is an alternative to scented candles which often contain toxic chemicals.
- They are completely all-natural.
- They’re beautiful smelling.
- If using a crockpot you won’t have to worry about open flames.
- They are inexpensive to make. Think of all the savings compared to buying scented candles. room sprays, and air fresheners.
- It’s a great way to utilize food scraps like fruit peels.
- The scents produced are real and not artificial!
What You'll Need
A simmer pot can contain an assortment of ingredients, including items collected during your nature walks and foraging adventures.
Not only do you get to enjoy nature while you’re out gathering ingredients, but the natural smells of the foraged plants will help bring a bit of the fresh scents of the outdoors in.
I use a variety of foraged and non-foraged ingredients because I like to add oranges, cinnamon and other ingredients that aren’t forageable here in the Northeast. If you want to go with all foraged, that’s okay too!
How to Make a Simmer Pot
It’s actually a lot easier than you might think to make a simmer pot. Simply fill a small saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Add the ingredients from your favorite recipe, continue to boil for a few minutes, then turn the heat down to simmer. Add water as needed, usually every 30 minutes or so.
If you don’t want the hassle of remembering that there’s something on the stove, you can also use a Crock-Pot or other slow cooker. Fill the pot most of the way with water, add your ingredients, put on the lid, then turn to high. When there’s steam rolling off the lid, take the lid off and set it to a low or simmer setting. Add water as needed to keep it at least halfway full.
Basic Simmer Pot Ingredients
Citrus
Lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruit add a fresh, clean scent. I often buy the fruit to eat, but save the peels in a ziplock in my freezer until I have enough for a nice simmer pot.
Cranberries
This time of year it’s easy to find cranberries, and they’re cheap too! The great thing is that they last a few weeks in the refrigerator or even longer in the freezer. They are a really beautiful addition to a simmer pot and add such a beautiful scent. I don’t think there’s any substitution for cranberries.
Whole Spices
Whole cinnamon sticks, cloves, peppercorns, and star anise all add a unique, wonderfully spicy scent to simmer pot blends. Whole spices are best purchased in bulk departments of grocery stores or online. If you’re in a pinch, you could also use ground spices.
Herbs and Flowers
Fresh rosemary, mint, lavender, sage, or rose petals are a few of my favorite herbs to add to simmer pots. They can be a wonderful addition to many recipes depending on the scent you’re aiming for.
Woodsy things
Pine or spruce twigs, pine needles, cedar, pinecones, tree barks, and tree buds all add a nice woodsy scent to the simmer pot blend.
Simmer Pot Recipes to Get You Started
Below are 10 simmer pot recipes that I’ve used with excellent results. Feel free to tweak them to suit your own tastes—or use them as a starting point for creating your own variety of simmer pot blends.
The great thing is that these recipes can be remixed to your taste or your pantry. It’s ok to leave ingredients out, go heavy-handed with the scents you like, or substitute things in the recipe for other flavors you like better (or to suit what you have on hand).
Soothing Herbal simmer pot
- 1/2 cup of dried lavender or 6-8 drops of pure lavender essential oil
- a branch of fresh eucalyptus
- a few sprigs of rosemary.
Start by adding small amounts of the herbs to the simmer pot because very often the smells become stronger once they start to boil or as they simmer. You can add more herbs if you want a stronger scent or dilute with more water if you want to weaken it.
Harvest Simmer Pot
- the peel of 1 apple,
- the peel of 1 orange
- 2-3 cinnamon sticks
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon cloves
- You also might want to add slices of both apple and orange
Winter Hygee Simmer Pot
- Peel from 1 orange
- 5 bay leaves
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1 tablespoon cloves
Springtime Simmer Pot
- a few slices of lime
- 4 sprigs of thyme
- a handful of mint
- a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Or for a vibrant, clean scent, go with an all-citrus simmer pot combo of lemon, lime, and orange slices.
Lavender Simmer Pot
- 1 cup dried lavender (or lavender essential oil)
- 1 tsp anise
- 1 Tablespoon nutmeg
- 1 Tablespoon whole cloves
- 1 cinnamon stick
Pumpkin Spice Simmer Pot
- 4 Tablespoons apple cider
- a generous sprinkle of pumpkin spice seasoning
- cinnamon sticks
- ground nutmeg
- a drop of vanilla extract
- whole cloves
Holiday Simmer Pot
- 1 orange (sliced into rounds)
- 1 lemon (sliced into rounds)
- 1 1/2 cups cranberries
- 1/2 cup of chopped pine or spruce needles
- 1 cinnamon stick (about 3 inches)
- 1 teaspoon whole cloves
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
- 1 pine cone (optional)
Evergreen Spice Simmer Pot
- 3 cinnamon sticks
- 1/4 cup chopped orange peels
- 1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
- apple peels from one apple
1/4 cup chopped evergreen (pine, spruce, fir) - 1/4 cup cranberries
Rosemary & Lemon Simmer Pot
- 1 lemon, sliced
- 2 fresh rosemary sprigs
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Optional: 2 cinnamon sticks
Cozy Home Simmer Pot
- 3/4 cup fresh cranberries
- 1/2 an orange or clementine cut into quarters
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 2-3 sprigs Rosemary or snipped pine tree pieces
