Five Delicious and Easy Recipes for Wild Mustang Grapes and One to Never Make

Check out these five delicious and simple recipes for wild grape. Plus one recipe you should NEVER try with wild grapes!

***Scroll down or click the gray button for all the FREE printable recipes!***

Wild Mustang Grapes make delicious juice and jelly. The flavor is tart, sweet, and bright. It’s a favorite in our house.

Start Here

If you’ve never tried Wild Mustang Grape juice or jelly, you’re missing out!

Check out my post all about Wild Mustang Grapes.

You’ll find tips on how to identify, pick, and cook them, plus a free recipe printable!

Watch out! They can cause an intense itchiness on your skin if not handled and prepared properly. But it’s SO WORTH IT!

Best grape jelly BY FAR and my favorite out of any jelly at all.

***If you don’t have access to the wild grapes, you can substitute any juice/jelly you like for these recipes.***

Watch my my video on How to Make Jelly From Wild Grapes!

Prepare the Juice or Jelly

For more in-depth instructions for making the jelly check out my post about Wild Mustang Grapes.

To get grape juice, follow the steps for making the jelly until you get to the point of straining the juice after it’s been in the fridge for a few days.

Once you’ve strained all the crystals and sludge out, you’re left with unsweetened grape juice, ready to make whatever recipe you like!

**Make sure to notice which recipe requires jelly and which requires juice!**

1. Wild Grape Floats

This one’s a super easy and fun way to use up some of that grape juice.

You need 4 cups of unsweetened grape juice.

Mix the juice with 2 cups of sugar until it’s all dissolved.

Add 3 cups of any kind of lemon-lime soda (sprite, 7-up, etc.).

Pour the mix into a cup and add some scoops or your favorite vanilla ice cream.

It’s so good! Tart, sweet, bubbly, creamy.

2. Wild Grape Gummy Treats Using Pectin

These gummies are delicious little treats and a fun alternative to store-bought candy. Why not make some gummies too the next time you’re canning jelly or jam?

I tried many times to make gummy bears using wild grapes.

I thought, this juice is so tart and yummy, it would make an excellent candy.

The normal route of unflavored gelatin was a bust (scroll down to see why), so I turned to pectin.

If you like the flavor of your jelly, you’ll like it as candy.

Although the texture is not quite like gummy bears, it’s very similar.

Using pectin for gummies gives it a texture like the jelly globs that get stuck on the rim of the jar, dry out, and concentrate – like a really thick jam but it can hold different, fun shapes.

To make the gummies, start by placing a small plate in the freezer. This will be used to check the doneness of the mixture later.

Pull out your silicone molds and make sure they’re clean and completely dry. Place all those on a baking tray to give them support when you place them in the fridge later. (that way you can put them on top of things and not have to clear out a shelf just for the gummies, what a pain)

Bring 1 cup of the wild grape jelly to a boil.

(You can make this with grape juice too, just sweeten it to your liking then bring it to a boil.)

Whisk in 4 tablespoons of pectin to make sure you don’t get any lumps.

Stir and boil for 5-10 minutes until it reaches the correct thickness.

Test the thickness by pulling out the cold plate, spooning on a dime size of jelly and placing it back into the freezer for 20 seconds. Pull it back out and you should be able to roll the mixture into a little gummy ball that isn’t sticky. That’s how you know it’s done.

Quickly pour the hot mixture into the molds but it’ll set up fast! You can use a rubber spatula to scoop the remaining goo and squish it into empty spots.

Let chill in the fridge and enjoy!

3. Wild Grape Soufflé in a Mug

Everyone LOVED this recipe and it was gone within seconds of coming out of the oven. I had to move quick to snap this picture!

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and generously spread the extra butter on the inside of 4 mugs.

I don’t have ramakins so we grabbed mugs and they worked perfectly!

Separate 6 eggs yolks from the whites. You’ll use it all but in different parts of the recipe.

Whip the egg whites in a bowl with 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar until you get stiff-ish peaks.

Add 6 tablespoons of sugar and beat until glossy and the mixture is thick enough that it holds together and doesn’t move if you turn the whole bowl upside down.

Set that aside.

In a saucepan, over medium heat, melt one stick of butter and mix in 6 tablespoons of wild grape jelly. (Check out my Wild Mustang Grape post to learn how to make the jelly)

Take off the heat and whisk in the egg yolks. Whisk quickly so they don’t curdle.

Bring that grape/egg yolk mixture over to the bowl with the egg white mixture and slowly pour that into the egg whites while whisking until it just comes together.

Pour into the prepared mugs and bake for about 15 minutes.

Let them cool for just a minute and then eat right away while they’re still warm because they deflate the longer they sit.

Enjoy!

These are sweet, creamy, tart, warm, and perfect!

4. Wild Grape Tarts

These little tarts are the perfect little bite of pie. Flaky, crispy crust and bursting with sweet and tart flavor! They actually remind me more of pie made with sour cherries than store bought grape jelly.

This recipe follows the same path I use any time I want to make tarts. Whether it’s Mulberries, Agarita berries, or Wild Grape, it’s the same perfect process:

1. Make the filling by boiling it and adding sugar, then thicken it with cornstarch.
2. Make the dough, roll it out thin, and cut it into a bunch of the same shape.
3. Put the dough on the pans, poke holes with a fork, and put the filling in.
4. Bake at 400 degrees for around 15 minutes, until golden brown.

I use my tried and true pie crust recipe. It’s flaky, tender, with just the best crust flavor I’ve had, ever.

And the best part is it’s simple and not fussy to make. No ice cubes.

Find the recipe, more instructions and tips, and even the video about how to make it. Just click here: THE BEST Easy Pie Crust.

You’ll need one batch of my pie crust for this recipe.

For the filling, you can either start with grape juice or the jelly if you’ve already made it.

Either way, they’ll need to be thickened a little more to be the right consistency for tarts.

For unsweetened juice, mix 2 cups of grape juice with 1 cup of sugar in a pan and bring to a light boil over medium-high heat.

Stir and cook until the sugar has dissolved.

For the jelly you can skip the sugar and heat 3 cups of jelly till boiling then follow the next steps for either jelly or juice.

In a separate small bowl, mix 6 tablespoons of cornstarch with 6 tablespoons of water until there are no lumps.

Mixing it separately makes it so you won’t have lumps of cornstarch in your filling.

Pour the cornstarch slurry into the boiling juice and whisk until it thickens.

It happens quickly so don’t walk away from it.

Set the filling aside while you roll out the pie crust.

Pie Crust Shapes

On a lightly floured surface, roll out your dough to a 1/4 inch thickness and then cut out whatever shapes you want your shapes to be.

If I want pop-tarts, I’ll cut out an even number of rectangles. If I want hand pies, I’ll cut out medium sized circles and fold in half when I fill them. Or I could make one giant, free-form tart like my sister does. It’s delicious however you want to put it together.

In this case, I went with the mini muffin tin again because it’s so cute and they make for the perfect little bite of pie.

You need 2 pans with 24 mini muffin slots to use up all your dough.

You can find that HERE. (I found my mini muffin tins at goodwill so you might want to check your local thrift stores first before purchasing them online)

You can use some cooking spray on the tin before placing the dough in but I find that my non-stick tins don’t need it.

Cut circles out of the dough the are just a little larger than the muffin depressions. Then smoosh each circle down into each space.

It’ll seem like it’s not enough dough but just keeping smooshing it with your fingers till the dough molds to the muffin form and reaches to the top all around the sides. It’s ok if there are little tears or thin spots.

Use a fork to poke some holes into the bottom of each tart shell.

You can watch me makes mulberry tarts this way in my Mulberries video. The dough rolling part starts at about 4:53.

Fill each crust about 3/4 full with the grape filling then bake at 400 degrees for about 13 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and the filling is bubbly.

Let them cool for 10 minutes (or until they’re just a little warm) because they’ll burn your mouth. Then loosen any filling stuck to the sides and with a little pressure on one side, the tarts should pop right out.

If you have trouble getting them out, let them cool completely then run a thin plastic knife around the edges. Use a plastic because a metal knife could scrape non-stick coating.

Enjoy!

5. Wild Grape Punch

Not only is this punch delicious, it’s so pretty too! It turns a lovely shade of foamy pink and I love the little patches of green floating around.

So dreamy!

Before making this one, make sure your juice and soda are chilled so that the sherbet doesn’t completely melt right away and it doesn’t have to do the work of cooling the drinks.

Mix a 2 liter bottle of Fresca with 2 cups of wild grape juice (you can sweeten the grape juice with 1 cup of sugar before mixing or leave it unsweetened – whatever you prefer. I usually sweeten it first).

Next add 1 quart of lime sherbet in scoops. I like to use a cookie scoop.

It’ll foam up quite a bit but stir it a few times and after a little while it’ll settle down.

Use a pretty bowl and glass cups so you get the full effect of the pink.

Easy, fast and so delicious!

6. Don’t Make This One

On my quest to make grape flavored gummy bears, I researched a lot of recipes. Almost all of them recommended using unflavored gelatin in a concentrated amount.

I used Knox gelatin and sweetened, fresh grape juice. The gelatin was not expired.

I used 1 cup of sweetened juice with 4 packets of gelatin. I followed the directions by blooming it in cold liquid before adding it to the boiling juice.

What resulted was the stinkiest, most putrid thing I have ever cooked.

It smelled so bad, I had a really hard time standing near it to stir the liquid as the gelatin boiled and dissolved on the stove.

It smelled like someone rubbed their intensely stinky feet all over a dead animal, whose last meal was sour grapes.

The kids were all complaining “What’s that smell?! Who’s doing that?!” as they moved as far away as they could.

The first time I made it, I just thought, trust the process, maybe the smell will dissipate as it sets up.

I poured it into molds and let it set up in the fridge.

It appeared to be successful because they popped out of the molds and had the perfect texture for gummy bears!

BUT

As soon as you bring your nose close enough to give it a sniff, it a no-go. STINKY FEET-DEAD ANIMAL.

That horrible smell lingers and definitely effects the taste.

I tried it two more times to see if it was user error or a fluke or gelatin that’s gone bad.

Nope. Still awful.

For some reason, unflavored gelatin just does not work with this juice.

0 stars. Would not recommend.

Having said all that, I am curious to see if flavored jello packets would have the same results. I might try that at some point. But I’ve run out of the juice for this year.

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