Yule Simmer Pot: 7 Recipes, Ingredient Meanings and How to Make One
Seven Yule simmer pot recipes with quantities, ingredient meanings and their real age, timings for stove and slow cooker, and the evergreens to keep out of the pot.
A Yule simmer pot is the cheapest solstice ritual there is: a saucepan, tap water and what is already in the fruit bowl and spice rack. Below are seven recipes with quantities, what each ingredient is said to mean and how old that meaning really is, plus the timings, the safety rules and the evergreens you should keep out of the pot.
Contents
A Yule simmer pot is a pan of water kept just below a boil with orange slices, cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, cranberries and a sprig of fir or rosemary, so the steam scents the house on the winter solstice. Top up the water every 30 to 45 minutes and never leave the stove unattended.
The December solstice in 2026 occurs on December 21 at 3:50 p.m. Eastern Time
Unattended cooking is the leading factor in US home cooking fires (NFPA)
Yew, holly berries and mistletoe are toxic if eaten
Clove-studded oranges were given as New Year's gifts in early modern England
The simmer pot as a named witchcraft ritual is a recent practice with no medieval Yule source
Orange stands for the returning sun, cinnamon for prosperity, clove for protection
A simmer pot brings luck, money or protection
VERIFIED = verifiable in scientific or official sources · TRADITIONAL = historically or culturally recorded · LIVED PRACTICE = widely practiced, experiential knowledge · NOT PROVEN = spiritual interpretation, not scientifically established.
Quick answer: A Yule simmer pot is a pan of water kept just below a boil with orange slices, cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, cranberries and a sprig of fir or rosemary, so the steam scents the house on the winter solstice. Top up the water every 30 to 45 minutes and never leave the stove unattended.
What is a Yule simmer pot?
A Yule simmer pot is a pot of water with fruit, whole spices and evergreens, held at a low simmer so that fragrant steam fills the house around the winter solstice. Nothing in it is eaten or drunk. It is stovetop potpourri with an intention attached.
In modern witchcraft the pot does the job that smoke does in other rituals. You choose each ingredient for what it stands for, say what you want the season to bring as it goes into the water, and let the scent carry that through every room. For people who cannot burn anything where they live, or who share a home with someone who dislikes incense, it is the gentlest way to mark Yule.
In 2026 the solstice falls on Monday, December 21, at 3:50 p.m. Eastern (12:50 p.m. Pacific). Most people put the pot on that afternoon or the evening before, and many keep one going on and off through the twelve nights that follow.
How do you make a Yule simmer pot?
Fill a pot two-thirds with water, add the ingredients, bring it to a boil, then turn it down to the lowest setting that still gives off steam. That is the whole method; the rest is keeping the water level up.
Yule simmer pot, step by step
- Choose the pot. A 2 to 3 quart saucepan or small Dutch oven. Stainless steel or enamel is best; citrus can strip the seasoning from bare cast iron.
- Add 4 to 6 cups of water so the pot is about two-thirds full.
- Add the ingredients one at a time. If you are working with intention, name what each one is for as it goes in.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce to low. You want a lazy bubble at the edge and visible steam, not a rolling boil.
- Set a timer for 30 minutes and top up with hot water each time it rings. Never let the level fall below half.
- Stir clockwise once or twice if that is part of your practice, and say what you want the returning light to bring.
- Turn the burner off whenever you leave the kitchen for longer than a few minutes, and always before you leave the house or go to bed.
Whole spices work far better than ground ones. Ground cinnamon turns the water to mud and gives up its scent in minutes, while a cinnamon stick keeps releasing for hours. The same goes for citrus: thick slices or peel outlast juice.
What goes in a Yule simmer pot, and what does each ingredient mean?
The classic base is orange, cinnamon, clove and something evergreen. The meanings below are the ones in common use among modern practitioners. Nearly all of them trace to twentieth-century correspondence books rather than to any Yule source, and the last column says so plainly.
The same orange and clove pairing makes a clove orange pomander, which keeps its scent for years once dried, and the spent curing spice can go straight into the pot.
| Ingredient | Said to stand for | How it smells | What the record shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orange slices or peel | The returning sun, joy, luck | Bright, sweet | Solar link is modern. Oranges were a costly midwinter treat in Europe and America well into the 1800s, which is why they became a stocking gift. |
| Cinnamon sticks | Warmth, prosperity, protection | Sweet, woody | Money association popularized by Scott Cunningham (1985). A prized trade spice since antiquity. |
| Whole cloves | Protection, banishing gossip | Sharp, warm | Clove-studded oranges (pomanders) are recorded in England from the 1500s, as scent and supposed defense against bad air. |
| Star anise | Luck, clear sight | Licorice-like | Modern correspondence. A Chinese spice that reached European kitchens in the late 1500s. |
| Cranberries | Abundance, hearth, the color of holly | Faint, tart | North American fruit; no old-world folklore. Chosen for color. |
| Fir, pine or spruce sprig | Endurance, life through winter | Resinous, green | Bringing evergreens indoors at midwinter is documented in Britain from the Middle Ages (Hutton, 1996). |
| Rosemary | Remembrance, cleansing | Piney, herbal | "Rosemary for remembrance" is in Hamlet (c. 1600); a standard Christmas green in Tudor England. |
| Bay leaf | Wishes, success | Mild, herbal | Laurel as victory is classical. Writing wishes on bay leaves is a recent practice. |
| Fresh ginger | Energy, speed | Hot, bright | Modern correspondence. |
| Apple slices | Love, health | Soft, sweet | Apples carry the old wassailing custom of toasting orchard trees in midwinter. |
| Vanilla | Love, comfort | Creamy | Modern correspondence; a Mesoamerican spice. |
| Nutmeg (whole, cracked) | Luck, money | Warm, nutty | Carried as a luck charm in American folk practice; the scent meaning is modern. |
Two honest notes. First, a pot built entirely for meaning can smell flat, and one built for scent alone still works as a ritual if you bring the intention. Start with orange, cinnamon and clove and add one or two things that matter to you. Second, color is doing a lot of the work here: red, green, gold and white are the modern candle color conventions for the season, and most Yule recipes are really those four colors in a pan.
Seven Yule simmer pot recipes
Each recipe is for 4 to 6 cups of water in a 2 to 3 quart pot. Quantities are forgiving; halve them for a small saucepan.
| Recipe | Ingredients | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Traditional Yule | 1 orange, sliced · 3 cinnamon sticks · 1 tbsp whole cloves · 2 star anise · ½ cup cranberries · 1 small fir or pine sprig | Solstice day itself; the scent most people mean by "Yule" |
| 2. Returning Sun | Peel of 2 oranges · 1 lemon, sliced · 1 thumb fresh ginger, sliced · 2 bay leaves · 1 cinnamon stick | The morning after the longest night; bright and clean |
| 3. Evergreen Forest | 2 fir or spruce sprigs · 2 rosemary sprigs · 1 tbsp juniper berries · 3 bay leaves · peel of 1 orange | People who dislike sweet scents |
| 4. Hearth and Home | 1 apple, sliced · 2 cinnamon sticks · 1 tsp vanilla extract · 1 cracked whole nutmeg · 1 tbsp cloves | Guests, a feast, a new home |
| 5. Protection for the Dark Half | 3 rosemary sprigs · 3 bay leaves · 1 tbsp cloves · 1 tsp black peppercorns · peel of 1 lemon · pinch of salt | The evening before the solstice, after cleaning the house |
| 6. Prosperity for the New Year | 1 orange, sliced · 3 cinnamon sticks · 3 bay leaves · 1 thumb ginger · 1 cracked nutmeg · 5 allspice berries | December 31 and January 1 |
| 7. Quiet Night | Peel of 1 orange · 1 tbsp dried lavender · 1 tsp vanilla extract · 2 chamomile tea bags · 1 cinnamon stick | A solitary Yule; the last hour before bed (burner off before you sleep) |
If you want to write the wish down as well as speak it, a bay leaf is the usual carrier in recipes 2, 5 and 6. Use a food-safe pen or simply hold the leaf and say it. The longer written version of that custom, with thirteen slips of paper over thirteen nights, is the 13 wishes ritual.
If you want to work with this yourself, this is what we use
Hanging Cauldron Wax Burner — Ceramic Witch Pot for Wax Melts
A tealight-heated ceramic cauldron on a stand. Made for wax melts, and it takes water with a few drops of essential oil just as well, which makes it a desk-sized stand-in when a stovetop pot is not practical. $30.95
Shipping is calculated at checkout. Orders ship within 3 business days.
How long can you leave a simmer pot on the stove?
You can keep a simmer pot going for as many hours as you are in the room to watch it, usually two to four at a stretch. The limit is your attention, not the ingredients.
An uncovered pot on low loses roughly a cup of water every 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the burner and the width of the pan. A pot that boils dry scorches the fruit, ruins the pan and can start a fire. The National Fire Protection Association has reported for years that cooking is the leading cause of home fires in the United States and that unattended cooking is the leading factor in those fires. A simmer pot is cooking, however festive it looks.
Can you make a Yule simmer pot in a slow cooker?
Yes, and it is the safer choice for a long day. Fill a 2 to 4 quart slow cooker two-thirds with hot water, add the ingredients, set it to high with the lid on until it steams, then take the lid off and turn it to low.
A slow cooker gives a softer scent than a stovetop because the water never quite bubbles, so use about half again as much spice. It still needs topping up every few hours and it should still be switched off when you leave the house. Small "mini" slow cookers sold for dips are ideal for a studio or a dorm kitchen.
Other heat sources work on a smaller scale: a candle warmer under a heatproof mug, or a tealight burner with a tablespoon of water and a drop of essential oil. If smoke is the issue rather than the stove, our guide to scenting an apartment without setting off the alarm covers the low-smoke options.
Temple Tip
Make the pot the night before. Slice the orange, measure the spices into a jar and leave the saucepan filled on the cold stove. On the solstice you only have to turn a dial at 3:50 p.m., which is the difference between a ritual you keep and one you meant to.
How many times can you reuse a simmer pot?
You can reuse a simmer pot for two to three days. Let it cool, cover it, refrigerate it overnight and add fresh water the next day; add a new slice of orange when the scent fades.
Throw it out when the water turns cloudy and brown, the fruit goes soft and grey, or it smells stewed rather than fresh. Citrus breaks down first. Spices and evergreens will outlast three rounds of fruit, so you can strain them and start again with new orange.
What do you do with a Yule simmer pot when it is finished?
Strain it, compost the solids and pour the cooled water on the ground outside. Do not pour whole spices and peel down the sink; cloves and cinnamon bark are a reliable way to block a drain.
Practitioners differ on the water. A pot made to draw something in (recipes 1, 2, 4 and 6) is commonly poured at the front step or used, cooled and strained, to wipe down the door frame. A pot made to clear something out (recipe 5) is poured away from the house, at the curb or the edge of the yard. If you have no outdoor space, the drain is fine for the liquid. We have a fuller guide on how to dispose of ritual remains respectfully.
Keep salted water away from garden beds and houseplants, and do not give simmer pot water to plants if it contained essential oils.
Which evergreens and plants should stay out of the pot?
Leave out yew, holly berries, mistletoe and anything you cannot identify. A simmer pot is not for drinking, but it sits at child and pet height on a counter while it cools, and a pan of floating berries looks like food.
| Plant | In the pot? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Fir, spruce, pine (true pines) | Yes | Standard and safe to scent with. Use unsprayed sprigs; many cut Christmas trees are treated with colorant or fire retardant. |
| Rosemary, bay, juniper berries (culinary) | Yes | Kitchen herbs. |
| Cedar | Yes, sparingly | Strong; a small sprig is enough. |
| Yew (Taxus) | No | Needles and seeds are highly poisonous to people, pets and livestock. Easily mistaken for fir: flat dark needles, red fleshy cups instead of cones. |
| Holly berries | No | Cause vomiting if eaten; attractive to small children. |
| Mistletoe | No | Toxic if eaten. |
| Poinsettia, ivy | No | Irritant sap; no scent benefit. |
| Essential oils added to the water | With care | A few drops go a long way. Several oils are hazardous to cats and birds when diffused, so check before using them around pets. |
If you share a home with animals, read our pet-safety guide to incense and scent before adding oils, and see our list of plants you should never burn for the same caution applied to smoke. Keep the pot on a back burner with the handle turned in.
How do you make a dried Yule simmer pot for gifting?
Dry the fruit, layer it in a jar with whole spices and add a tag with the instructions. A pint jar holds one generous pot.
Dried simmer pot gift jar (makes one pint)
- Slice 1 orange and 1 apple about ¼ inch thick. Pat dry.
- Lay the slices on a rack over a baking sheet and dry at 200°F for 2½ to 3 hours, turning once, until leathery with no wet spots. Cool completely.
- Layer in a clean, dry pint jar: orange slices against the glass, then 3 cinnamon sticks, 1 tbsp cloves, 3 star anise, ¼ cup dried cranberries, 2 bay leaves and a dry rosemary sprig.
- Seal and label with the date. Properly dried, it keeps about six months in a cupboard.
- Tag: Empty into a small pot with 4 cups of water. Simmer on low, top up every 30 minutes, never leave unattended.
Skip fresh evergreens in a gift jar; they go brown and can mold. A written line about what the jar is for (warmth, luck in the new house, a quiet winter) is the part people remember.
Is the simmer pot an old Yule tradition?
No. The simmer pot as a named witchcraft practice is recent, mostly a product of the last fifteen years of online craft, and no medieval or early modern Yule source describes one. What it draws on is older.
Scenting a house against winter is well recorded. Tudor households carried pomanders and strewed rosemary and bay; a clove-studded orange was a New Year's gift in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Wassail, the hot spiced ale or cider of the midwinter toast, takes its name from the Old English greeting wæs hæl, "be well," and filled English kitchens with much the same smell. "Simmering potpourri" was sold in American gift shops in the 1980s as a pan-and-water alternative to dried petals in a bowl.
So the pot is a modern ritual assembled from genuine midwinter materials. That is true of a good deal of contemporary Yule, as our piece on whether the Christmas tree is pagan shows, and it is no reason not to do it. It is a reason not to call it ancient.
Which Yule simmer pot should you make?
Pick the line closest to your December.
Voices from practice: what people report
We do not publish invented testimonials. These are patterns that recur in public discussion of simmer pots among practitioners, given as patterns and without names.
The most common report is practical: the first pot boiled dry because nobody set a timer. The second is that the scent is quieter than expected, which is usually ground spice or too much water. People in apartments and shared houses describe the pot as the one ritual nobody objects to. And a recurring comment from people new to the craft is relief at a practice that needs nothing bought specially.
What we don't promise
A simmer pot will not bring money, luck, protection or love, and no ingredient in it has been shown to change events. It makes a house smell of orange and spice and gives you ten deliberate minutes at the turn of the year. The ingredient meanings are conventions, most of them younger than your grandparents.
It is also not aromatherapy in any medical sense. Steam scented with spices does not treat colds, low mood or anxiety. If the dark months affect your sleep, work or mood, talk to a doctor.
Practically: how to work with this
- This week: buy whole cinnamon, cloves and star anise while the shelves are full, and dry orange slices if you are making gift jars.
- December 20, evening: clean the kitchen, then run the protection pot (recipe 5) for an hour with a window cracked.
- December 21: Traditional Yule pot on at the solstice, 3:50 p.m. Eastern / 2:50 Central / 1:50 Mountain / 12:50 Pacific. Light one candle beside the stove if you keep a kitchen altar, well clear of sleeves and towels. Our guide to winter solstice rituals has the rest of the evening.
- December 31: Prosperity pot (recipe 6), poured at the front step after midnight.
- Every time: timer on, handle in, burner off when you leave.
For candles to set beside the pot, see our ritual candles; for tea, spices and vessels, the ritual kitchen collection.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Yule simmer pot?
A Yule simmer pot is a pot of water with orange slices, whole spices and evergreen sprigs kept at a low simmer so the steam scents the home at the winter solstice. Each ingredient is chosen for a meaning, such as orange for the returning sun. It is not eaten or drunk.
What do you put in a Yule simmer pot?
The classic Yule simmer pot uses one sliced orange, three cinnamon sticks, a tablespoon of whole cloves, two star anise, half a cup of cranberries and a small sprig of fir, pine or rosemary in four to six cups of water.
When should you make a Yule simmer pot?
Make it on the winter solstice, which in 2026 is Monday, December 21, at 3:50 p.m. Eastern Time. Many people also make one the evening before to clear the house and another on New Year's Eve.
How long does a simmer pot last?
A simmer pot lasts two to three days if you cool it, cover it and refrigerate it overnight, then add fresh water. On the stove it needs more water every 30 to 45 minutes. Discard it when the water is cloudy or smells stewed.
Can you leave a simmer pot on overnight?
No. Never leave a simmer pot on a stove overnight or while you are out; the water evaporates and the pot can scorch and catch fire. Turn it off, and restart it the next day.
Can you drink a simmer pot?
No. A simmer pot is made for scent. It may contain evergreen sprigs, essential oils or peel from sprayed fruit, and it has been sitting warm for hours. If you want something to drink, make mulled cider or wassail in a separate pan.
Is a simmer pot safe for cats and dogs?
A pot of water with orange, cinnamon and cloves on a back burner is generally low risk if pets cannot reach it. Do not add essential oils around cats or birds without checking each oil, and keep yew, holly berries and mistletoe out entirely.
What do you do with simmer pot water afterwards?
Strain it, compost the solids and pour the cooled water outside: at the front door for a pot meant to draw something in, away from the house for one meant to clear. Do not pour spices and peel down the drain.
Sources & further reading
- Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (Oxford University Press, 1996) — midwinter evergreens, wassailing and New Year's gifts.
- Scott Cunningham, Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs (Llewellyn, 1985) — the source of most modern herb and spice correspondences.
- National Fire Protection Association, Home Cooking Fires (2023) — unattended cooking as the leading factor in home cooking fires.
- ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center, toxic and non-toxic plant lists (accessed 2026) — yew, holly, mistletoe; essential oils and pets.
- Oxford English Dictionary, entries "wassail" and "pomander" (accessed 2026).
- Solstice time: our own calculation with Skyfield and the NASA JPL DE421 ephemeris (2026).
More for the dark half of the year: how to celebrate Yule · winter solstice rituals · the 13 wishes ritual · what to burn for Yule
