Cooking with cannabis is easy when you have the right essential cannabis recipes to get you started. Get the most important cannabis staple recipes you need to make in order to bring delicious cannabis-infused edibles to any recipe you love.
What You Need to Know Before Making Cannabis Recipes
If you are brand new to cooking with cannabis in the kitchen, there are a few important things to know before diving in and enjoying all of these delicious cannabis-infused recipes.
Consuming cannabis orally is a delicious way to medicate, but it can also have some unintended consequences if you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into first.
Here are some important things to know about consuming cannabis edibles:
Enjoy Getting Creative In Your Cannabis Kitchen
One of the biggest things that hold people back from experimenting in the kitchen is the scary thought ‘what if I mess it up?’.
For many people, getting cannabis may still be difficult or illegal, and the thought of ‘wasting’ it in a botched recipe is enough to not want to try.
Once recommended we have to get started experimenting in the kitchen with CBD hemp flower. With less than 0.3% THC, CBD hemp flower is legal in most states, easier to access, and cheaper.
While it does not contain the THC traditionally desired in a cannabis edible, it is a great way to allow yourself time and mistakes in the kitchen. Click here to learn more and buy CBD hemp flower.
Don’t Skip Cannabis Decarboxylation
Before getting started making any of these staple cannabis recipes, it is important to note that all raw cannabis or dried cannabis must undergo a process called decarboxylation in order to be able to enjoy the active forms of CBD or THC.
Raw and dried cannabis flower contains what is known as tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) and cannabidiolic acid (CBDA).
These cannabinoids are found in the raw cannabis plant material and contain their own powerful health benefits. However, these cannabinoids are not intoxicating in their natural state.
Decarboxylation is a process that converts THCa → Δ9-THC and CBDa → CBD. Using heat and/or solvents is the most common way to decarboxylate the cannabis flower before enjoying it.
Cannabis Recipes Are Both An Experiment & Commitment
Consuming cannabis edibles is truly a self-experiment that requires both curiosity and patience. It will likely take several tries for you to find a dosage with an identifiable onset and duration time that you can rely on.
It is for this reason that I always recommend my online course students consume cannabis edibles in the safety of their own home when they have a significant amount of time, at least 24 hours, to stay put and comfortably enjoy the experience.
Experimenting with dosages and duration times requires a time commitment from yourself. With the notoriously delayed onset and duration time of edibles, you should plan on devoting at least 6-12 hours to your experience.
During this time, plan to be safe in your home with no need to travel anywhere, no driving a car, and no operating heavy machinery.
Are You New to Consuming Cannabis Edibles? Be sure to read my Beginners Guide to Consuming Cannabis Edibles before getting started to ensure you have a safe and enjoyable experience!
Cannabis Recipes Have a Delayed Onset of Effects
It is important to know is that it could take anywhere between 30-minutes to several hours to feel the effects of your cannabis edible as it makes its way through your digestive system.
As tempted as you may be to eat another serving after not feeling anything for 30-minutes, be sure to give yourself more time before eating it.
This will prevent any accidental overdose of THC, which may cause unwanted side effects if that is not your intention.
Cannabis Recipes Can Be More Potent Than Smoking
When cannabis is eaten, it goes through the digestive system.
As it passes through the liver in what is known as the hepatic first-pass metabolism, Δ9-THC is hydroxylated into 11-OH-THC, a potent psychoactive metabolite that readily crosses the blood-brain barrier.
This intoxicating metabolite causes more potent, increased intoxicating effects for most cannabis edibles consumers.
Unknowingly consuming too much THC, especially in the form of cannabis edibles, may result in disorientation, dizziness, drowsiness, anxiety, and tachycardia.
Additionally, each person’s body will react differently to different cannabinoids due to our own unique endocannabinoid systems (ECS). Understanding your own ECS will help you determine your own personal reaction to cannabinoids.
Determining Final Recipe Potency
Without knowing the concentration of CBD or THC in your starting raw material, and without lab testing, it is nearly impossible to estimate the final potency of your homemade cannabis recipes.
If you know the cannabinoid concentrations of your starting cannabis flowers, you may be able to use an online calculator to guestimate how the final product potency.
6 Staple Recipes for Every Cannabis Kitchen
These are my six favorite standard staple recipes that can take you far in your cannabis kitchen.
Mastering these recipes will allow you to convert just about any recipe you already know and love into a cannabis-infused recipe.
Below we will cover the most important staple cannabis recipes:
- Cannabis-Infused Butter
- Cannabis-Infused Coconut Oil
- Cannabis-Infused Olive Oil
- Cannabis-Infused Alcohol Tincture
- Cannabis-Infused Sugar
- Full-Extract Cannabis Oil (FECO)
Cannabis Butter
Cannabis butter, or cannabutter, is one of the most essential cannabis recipes for anyone looking to make their own edibles at home because it is so versatile and easy to make.
Once you have your cannabis butter made, you can use it in just about any recipe you can dream of that traditionally calls for butter. This versatile recipe can then be used to make a variety of your favorite edibles.
This easy, step-by-step beginner’s guide will teach you how to make cannabutter at home in a crockpot or water bath.
From sweet to savory recipes, like classic brownies to cannabis chocolate chip cookies, there is a use for cannabis butter in just about every recipe you can imagine.
Cannabis-Infused Coconut Oil
This recipe is the holy grail of all cannabis recipes as it can be used as the base of many cannabis edible and cannabis topcial recipes and is naturally vegan, plant-based, and dairy-free.
This infusion process allows the cannabinoids to bind to the fat in the oil. You can follow this process to make cannabis-infused-coconut oil at home.
Once you have your cannabis coconut oil made, you can easily swap it in anywhere a recipe calls for fat. This allows you to make just about any recipe a cannabis-infused recipe.
Beyond just cannabis edibles, cannabis-infused coconut oil is the perfect base for many topical recipes like cannabis salve and cannabis lip balm.
Cannabis-Infused Olive Oil
Cannabis-infused olive oil is a light, delicious, and versatile cannabis infusion that is an important staple recipe for any cannabis consumer to master.
The final product is a cannabis-infused olive oil that can then be used to make so many different delicious cannabis recipes like our popular cannabis-infused pesto.
Cannabis Alcohol Tincture
A cannabis alcohol tincture, also known as the Green Dragon, is traditionally a medicinal preparation that is oftentimes added to recipes, especially cocktails.
You can follow this process for making your own cannabis tincture with alcohol at home.
Once you have a cannabis tincture made, you can use it as it, or evaporate it down to make full-extract cannabis oil or cannabis-infused sugar.
Cannabis-Infused Sugar
I love the idea of cannabis sugar because once it’s made it can act as a staple recipe to easily infuse all other recipes.
I also love the versatility of cannabis sugar, once it is made you can use it for so many different recipes including cannabis brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and even cocktails and drinks or a scoop in your morning coffee.
Plus, if you’re looking for a very, very potent recipe – you could use both cannabis butter AND cannabis sugar together for a double dose of CBD or THC.
Full-Extract Cannabis Oil
Full extract cannabis oil, also known as FECO, is a concentrated, whole-plant, full-spectrum cannabis extract. This means that all of the important plant compounds, from cannabinoids to terpenes and other plant materials, are present in the extract.
Once the FECO is prepared, it can be used in a variety of application methods including sublingual absorption, topical preparations, and cannabis edibles. It is not recommended to use FECO for inhalation or vaping.
Bonus Cannabis Recipes
Looking for Cannabis Drink Recipes? Get Them Here!
Looking for Leftover Cannabis Pulp Recipes? Get Them Here!
Looking to FURTHER YOUR CANNABIS EDUCATION?
Are you ready to learn more about cannabis and how you can use it to maximize your health and wellness? Click to learn more about my Cannabis Compass Online Course.
This online cannabis education teaches you how to use, apply, and dose all forms of cannabis in a safe and effective way so that you can begin to manage your anxiety, pain, and/or inflammation the natural way from the comfort of your own home.