Nourish - How to Make Fermented Honey Garlic
If you want to keep the cold and flu season a good mile away from you, definitely give this Fermented Honey Garlic a try. Since both honey and garlic have strong medicinal benefits, your immune system will certainly thank you for it!
Garlic is an all-time winter wellness favourite that should definitely make an appearance in your kitchen and herbal medicine cupboards. It’s fantastic at helping to fight infection and bacteria, plus it also boasts antimicrobial properties which act on viruses, bacteria, fungi and worms.
It even has mucus-thinning compounds that are excreted partially through the lungs. This makes it a useful herb when preventing and resolving respiratory infections.
Honey has many uses medicinally, but it is most commonly consumed to help promote a healthy immune system. It’s loaded with minerals, enzymes and antioxidants, and is superb to help keep colds and flu at bay. And should you have been plagued by a virus, it’s a great ally to help to:
- Ease coughs
- Soothe sore, dry or irritated throats
- help rebuild your immune system especially at this time of year
You only need two ingredients and a jar to make this, and the hardest part is the wait!
Let’s get on to the recipe! (Keep reading to find out how to use your beautiful concoction 😊)
How to Make Fermented Honey Garlic Recipe
Ingredients
Because raw honey still contains all the bacteria and wild yeast that is necessary for fermentation, always make sure to use raw, unpasteurized honey. The process is unlikely to work if it’s not raw, as the microbes will have been killed off in the pasteurization process.
- Raw garlic cloves
Depending on the size jar you’re using, you want enough garlic to fill up half the jar, and enough honey to cover the garlic in full and fill the jar, leaving about 1 inch room at the top.
Equipment
A sanitised glass jar with airtight lid or swingtop jar (like FIDO or IKEA)
Method
- Make sure your chosen vessel is sanitised
- Peel off the papery skin from the garlic cloves and gently press them with the back of a knife to bruise the garlic a bit to help with the fermentation.
- Once you have enough garlic in your jar, pour in your raw honey to cover the cloves. Naturally, you’ll notice that the garlic starts to float to the surface. Don’t worry, that’s ok. You’ll be using a weight or regularly turning the honey to prevent any problems.
Jar option 1: A Swing Top Jar
These are the jars with the rubber gasket and metal clamp to shut them. You’ll find them in IKEA for example. They’re great for fermenting because you just have to regularly ‘burp’ them by opening them and releasing the CO2. You’ll also want to place a small weight on top to keep the garlic submerged.
They’re a great option if you don’t want to rotate your honey jar daily.
Jar option 2: A jar with an airtight seal that you can turn over regularly
With this option, you’ll open the jar every day. This is because with fermentation comes a build-up of pressure from the CO2. You’ll open it every day for the first week, then reseal the jar and turn it over. Rotating the jar will help keep the garlic submerged under the honey. Then, after a week or so you can drop down to opening and rotating every 3-4 days.
Whichever jar method you’re using, it’s always a good idea to put a plate underneath the jar as it’s fermenting. It’s highly likely that it will bubble up a bit some honey might drip out.
4. When you’ve prepared your mixture, put it in a dark place to ferment. Your honey garlic concoction will need to ferment for anywhere between a month and 3 months to really be mature, but you can certainly eat it anytime from about a week into the process.
Over time, you’ll notice that the flavour will develop and the honey itself will become runnier in its consistency.
How To Store?
Store your fermented garlic and honey in a cool dark location away from direct sunshine. A kitchen cupboard or pantry is ideal.
As long as you store the honey with an airtight lid and don’t allow any moisture to enter the jar, then the garlic honey can last for months. If you prefer, you can also store the jar in the fridge to prevent potential contamination.
How to Use It
- If you feel like you’re coming down with a cold or sore throat, take a spoonful of the honey
- Equally, try eating one of the honey-soaked garlic cloves for a couple of days to help stop your cold/flu in its tracks
- Stir a teaspoon of the garlic-infused honey into hot water with lemon for a sweet but potent brew to soothe a sore throat or ease cold-related symptoms
- Take a teaspoon of honey daily as a preventative against any nasties going around
- Drizzle some honey over roasted veggies like sweet potatoes or parsnips mmm *chefs kiss*
- Use your infused honey for salad dressings and marinades
- Use the mellowed garlic in dips and spreads, for example, hummus
- Glaze fish, meat and tofu with it
- Spread over toast
- Drizzle over pasta
If you can think of a way you use honey and garlic and the same time, then you can almost certainly use this in its place!
Notes to Keep In mind
- When choosing your garlic, make sure to double-check for any signs of mould, brown spots or even sprouting. You never want to use garlic that has any signs of these things as you certainly don’t want to contaminate your ferment!
- You might notice that your garlic turns a blue or green colour. This is due to a reaction during the fermentation. It’s not harmful and is safe to use still, even if it does look slightly unnatural!
- Honey garlic should not be given to babies under one year of age.
Enjoy!!
If you want to make more things using herbs, have a read over these:
Emily Nöth
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Please remember that you should always obtain the all-clear from your doctor before starting any new supplement plan or diet if you’re on any medication
