Easy Cannabis Recipes for Beginners: Cannabutter, Brownies, Oil and Weed Tea

The easiest cannabis recipes to start with are the four basics every home cook builds on: cannabutter, weed brownies, cannabis-infused olive oil and cannabis tea. They all work for the same reason: THC and CBD are fat-soluble, so you need butter, oil or milk to pull them out of the plant. More and more people use cannabis for all kinds of reasons, from pure love of the herb to the benefits patients report, and there are plenty of ways to enjoy this ancient plant, so here are a few recipes to get the most out of it.

A few tips before you start cooking with weed

• If you want to bring cannabinoids into the kitchen, focus on fat. The key thing to remember is that compounds like THC and CBD are fat-soluble. So the most effective, versatile and healthy way to get cannabis into your food is through infused butter, ghee or oil. Their high fat content binds to the cannabinoids and gives you optimal absorption. On top of that, butter, ghee and oil are kitchen staples anyway.

• Some cannabis fans have also started experimenting with raw honey infused with cannabinoids. Good-quality raw honey has a reputation for soothing a sore throat and is popular among allergy sufferers. If you tend to catch colds year-round, keeping a little "cannabis honey" on hand might come in handy.

• We've talked before about consuming cannabis after "decarboxylation." But what is decarboxylation? It means heating raw cannabis to change the chemical structure of its natural cannabinoids. This standard step turns acidic compounds like THCA and CBDA into the more familiar and bioavailable THC and CBD.

That said, some people claim that eating raw weed has major health benefits. There's a growing movement of cannabis fans who juice, blend or eat raw cannabis flowers every day. According to people in this movement, raw cannabis delivers great nutrition thanks to its high concentrations of antioxidants, terpenes and chlorophyll.

There's not enough data yet to say whether this is the "healthiest" way to eat cannabis. Still, eating high-quality, lab-tested raw flower doesn't appear to be "unsafe," and raw buds won't get you high.

Easy cannabis recipes to make at home

Cannabutter

Making cannabutter might sound like a job for experts, but it really isn't. It's simple, and you can make it in your own kitchen.

The best part about cannabutter is that it works in countless dishes once you start cooking with cannabis.

You'll need 1 lb (450 g) of butter, margarine or whatever fat you cook with, plus 1/2 oz (14 g) of ground weed. Melt the butter in a pan and add the weed. Let it cook over low heat until the butter turns green from the herb. Strain the mix through a sieve and chill it in the fridge. That's it: your own personal cannabutter, ready for any recipe you want, sweet or savory. The sky's the limit.

Weed brownies

Everyone's heard of these legendary desserts, and for anyone who loves chocolate and cannabis, they're the base recipe you have to try.

The easiest way to make them is to grab a box of brownie mix from your favorite brand. Obviously, you'll need weed too. For these crazy brownies, we suggest anywhere from 4 to 18 grams of weed; if you're new to edibles, stay at the low end.

Next, heat the amount of oil the box calls for and add the weed to the pan. Let the weed and oil cook over low to medium heat for about 30 minutes.

Then strain out the plant matter and add the oil to the brownie mix. Follow the box instructions and you'll end up with a batch of delicious pot brownies.

Cannabis-infused olive oil

There are tons of recipes for making cannabis oil, but here's a simple one: no real cooking involved, just a little patience and good-quality weed.

So how do you make cannabis oil? Here's the step-by-step:

• Rinse the weed in hot water to clean it. Since hot water alone doesn't fully decarboxylate it, decarb it in the oven too.
• Get a glass container big enough for the amount of oil you're making.
• Pour in your favorite extra virgin olive oil, or whichever one you think will pair best with the weed you picked. Remember, it can be CBD-rich, THC-rich or both.
• Add about 20-25 g (just under 1 oz) of dried, cured, unground weed.
• Let it steep somewhere dark and dry for a couple of weeks, stirring now and then so the weed releases its compounds.
• Once that time's up, it's ready to use.
• Don't take the weed out of the glass container.
• If the mix turns out too strong, pour it into a new glass container and add about a quarter more extra virgin olive oil to mellow it out. Shake it hard and let it rest in the dark for a couple of days so it settles nicely.
• Your cannabis oil is now ready to use under the tongue, on the skin or as a dietary supplement.

Cannabis oil benefits:

• Muscle pain and arthritis
  It's often used for chronic pain and arthritis, and some patients report it works better for them than conventional medications.

• Anxiety
  THC can have a relaxing effect on the nervous system, and some people find it helps take the edge off anxiety.

• Nausea and vomiting
  Cannabis has been used for decades to ease nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy and other medical conditions.

• Epilepsy
  Some studies suggest cannabis may help reduce seizures in patients with epilepsy.

• Glaucoma
  THC and other cannabinoids in cannabis can temporarily lower intraocular pressure, though research hasn't shown that this slows glaucoma down over time.

How to make cannabis tea

If you want cannabis food that won't get you as high as smoking does, cannabis tea is a great option for people who are mostly after its medicinal side.

Many people find a single cup deeply relaxing, for both body and mind. Below we walk through how to make weed tea, what to expect and when it makes sense. The best part is that you can use your weed leaves here and your tea will still turn out great.

To make this tasty drinkable edible, you'll need 1 g of buds per cup, or 2 g if you're using leaves instead of buds. If you're going with leaves, toss in a bud or two for a much stronger flavor. You'll also need butter, about a small teaspoon per cup, because, as we explained above, water doesn't absorb cannabinoids. You can use milk instead of butter, about a finger's width per cup of water, but butter will give you a stronger effect.

Cannabis tea, step by step:

1. First, crush the leaves or buds so they're broken down as fine as possible. Once they're fully crushed, add the butter and mix it well into the dry weed. If you're using milk, add it to the pot at the same time as the buds.
2. Once it's well mixed, bring your water to a boil: you'll need 1.5 cups of water for every cup you plan to drink. Don't add the weed until the water is at a full boil, and as soon as you add it, turn the heat down to the lowest setting.
3. Stir a lot over low heat for 30 minutes, until the butter is completely melted and blended into the water. Stir slowly but constantly.
4. When you can't see any more foam from the butter, it's ready to pour into your cup through a strainer.

Ideally, drink it right away before it cools down, because as the temperature drops the butterfat will separate from the water. If you made it with milk, you can let it sit at room temperature, since milk is already a liquid and won't solidify the way butter does.

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