Make-your-own ‘Marmite’
Makes: 1 x 200ml jar
Prep time: 30 minsTotal time: 
Recipe photograph by Maja Smend
Make-your-own ‘Marmite’
Recipe by Alex Bond
This version of Marmite is so versatile; you can slather it on toast, use it to flavour broths and gravy, and even toss your roast potatoes in it
Makes: 1 x 200ml jar
Prep time: 30 minsTotal time: 
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Alex Bond
Chef Alex Bond launched his fine-dining restaurant Alchemilla in Nottingham in 2017 and was awarded a Michelin star two years later. Known for its imaginative cuisine, the restaurant is plant-based and has a zero-waste policy
See more of Alex Bond’s recipes
Alex Bond
Chef Alex Bond launched his fine-dining restaurant Alchemilla in Nottingham in 2017 and was awarded a Michelin star two years later. Known for its imaginative cuisine, the restaurant is plant-based and has a zero-waste policy
See more of Alex Bond’s recipes
Ingredients
- 1kg sourdough bread, thickly sliced
- 7g fresh yeast, or brewer’s yeast powder
- 10g sugar (any type)
Step by step
Get ahead
Keeps for up to 1 month in a sterilised jar in the fridge.
- Preheat the oven to 220°C, fan 200°C, gas 7. Put the sliced bread on a large baking tray and toast in the oven for 25-30 minutes, turning halfway, until very well browned. Chop into large cubes.
- Combine the yeast and sugar with a little water in a very large bowl, then pour in a further 4 litres of room-temperature water. Stir in the toasted bread and leave to soak, covered with a clean tea towel or muslin, for 12 hours.
- After 12 hours, use a slotted spoon to scoop out a bit of the bread at a time. Holding it over the bowl, squeeze the liquid that it has soaked up back into the bowl, then discard the squeezed-out bread. Repeat with all the bread until you’re left with just a cloudy liquid. Loosely cover with a clean tea towel or muslin and leave the liquid to ferment at room temperature for the next 2 days.
- Pour the liquid into a large wide pan on thehob and reduce to a syrupy consistency (it will thicken further as it cools). As the 4 litres of liquid will reduce to about 200ml of ‘Marmite’, it may take a couple of hours to reduce to the right consistency – you’ll need to keep an eye on it towards the end of the reduction time to make sure it doesn’t catch, and you may want to transfer it to a smaller pan towards the end.
Chef quote
This recipe is super-rich, with a really strong umami flavour. It’s a bit less salty and more acidic than shop-bought Marmite, which is made from leftover brewer’s yeast. I think that’s what gives ours a deeper, richer, more ‘bready’ flavour.
