Fermented garlic honey is an excellent contribution to your natural medicine cabinet to help boost your immune system and fight off nasty viruses that like to creep in during cold and flu season. Both honey and garlic have strong medicinal benefits to help keep your immune system in top notch shape.
Fermenting Garlic in Honey
I am really excited to share this post with you! We take many precautions to stay healthy and use natural remedies when we do come down with an illness. It is important to note that it’s common to come down with illnesses from time to time to help build your immune system even more.
We used fermented garlic honey last fall/winter to help with illnesses like strep throat and common colds and we had much success. Fermented garlic honey is one of the easiest remedies to make and have on hand. You really just need some time to allow it to ferment to get the most out of it.
This tasty fermented garlic honey can also be used in food recipes to add some great flavor.
Fermented Garlic Honey Recipe
This recipe is so simple it hardly needs a recipe. This will be short and sweet and to the point.
First, choose a jar you would like to use to ferment your garlic honey in. I like to use pint or quart mason jars because it’s easy to burp the jar and we only utilize glass in our house.
Fill the jar 1/2-3/4 of the way full with peeled garlic cloves. Use the side of your chopping knife to bruise/smash the garlic head to help loosen the peel on the garlic cloves. Peel each clove. This is the most time consuming of prepping the fermented garlic honey.
Next, add the honey in. You want to make sure you have raw honey. It’s even better if you have local raw honey. You will benefit more from local because your immune system will be introduced to the allergens in your area. It’s also important to use raw honey because that will have all the necessary bacteria and wild yeast in order to make the fermentation process successful.
You are simply going to pour the honey in on top of the garlic cloves. You want to pour until the cloves are covered. I like to give about a half inch to an inch on top of the cloves. Your cloves will most likely begin to float. No worries, that is normal.
Cover and Flip
Now all you need to do is cover your jar with a lid. Another reason I like to use a mason jar. You will place your jar of garlic honey in a cool dark place. I usually just keep mine on a shelf in my pantry.
In the beginning, you are going to want to “burp” your jar, that simply means open the lid to allow some of the fermentation pressure to escape. Just unscrew the lid, and screw it back on.
You also need to turn your jar to make sure you continue to coat the garlic cloves in the honey. They tend to float to the top and hang there.
This should be done like once a day or at least as frequently as you think about it. I usually like to burp my garlic honey and give my Homemade Vanilla a shake. If you want to learn to make homemade vanilla extract check out my instagram reel in the video link. ☺️
I like to keep a plate or paper towel under my jar. You can sometimes get leaks during the fermentation process.
You should notice bubbles start to form on the top! Great job! You have successfully fermented garlic honey. The longer you allow to ferment, the more potent your honey will become. I like to allow 4-6 weeks for a good solid ferment to utilize this as an effective natural remedy but you can eat it at any time during the process.
Your honey will start to become thin and runny, while your garlic cloves will start to turn a darker brown, or some may get a blue/green tint to them. This is not cause for alarm. This can sometimes happen during the fermentation process and they are still okay to eat or use the honey.
Honey garlic will store well in a cool dark place for many months or up to a year or longer. Ours has never gone bad, but we typically use it up with cooking, as a natural remedy or sharing with family in need, so I like to make small batches and keep on hand.
Using Fermented Garlic Honey
Okay, so now you have made this great fermented garlic honey, but how do you use it?
Our favorite way to use it is as a natural remedy. I was amazed that it healed my daughter’s strep throat last fall in about three days time.
If you feel yourself starting to fall under the weather, we like to give a tablespoon of honey every couple of hours. So about every two hours, I’d giver her a tablespoon of the honey. My kids are not fans of taking the whole garlic clove. While I feel that is very effective, it does have a pretty strong bite that they do not enjoy. My husband takes the whole cloves and has great success. Usually a shorter healing time. However, the honey is very effective too and they like the taste of that.
Please note, I am not a doctor and this is all knowledge from my personal experience and research. Please be sure to research on your own. This is also not recommended for children under one year old due to the fact that it contains honey.
As mentioned above, this is also good to cook with. Use the garlic cloves in dishes or use the honey as a marinade.
And that’s it…
See! A simple but awesome recipe to have on hand. Like I said, we are never without fermented garlic honey in our house now. I hope you love this recipe. If you give it a try, I’d love your feedback in the comments section! ❤️
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Fermented Garlic Honey
Materials
- Raw Honey
- Whole Garlic Cloves
Instructions
- Start by peeling several cloves of garlic. Add these to your jar until your jar is 1/2-3/4 of the way full of cloves.
- Next, take your raw honey and pour over the top of the garlic until it covers the garlic 1/2-1 inch.
- Seal your jar with a lid. Give the jar a few turns to make sure the garlic is all covered. The garlic will tend to float to the top, and that is okay, but you need to give your jar a turn every day or every few days to keep the garlic covered.
- Store in a cool dry place. Burp the jar daily or every few days to relieve some of the fermentation pressure.
- Watch your honey start to thin. You can use at any point of the process but after about a month, your fermented garlic honey will have more medicinal benefit.
- Enjoy your fermented garlic honey!