If you’ve ever wandered over to the Fancy Stuff In Jars section of the grocery store, you’ve likely come across infused honey. These are not just regular old jars of honey, oh no. Infused honey is a step above. It often features decadent, all-natural flavors (like lavender or truffles), is beautifully packaged, and costs an arm and a leg.
But guess what? Infused honey is incredibly easy to make on your own – for much less money. The process is so simple that it hardly even requires a recipe. You don’t have to use fancy ingredients like lavender or truffles, either. You can make a tasty infused honey with whichever herbs and spices you have lying around, from chile to chamomile. It tastes delicious, and it makes an impressive gift.
Infused honey is lovely for adding to tea or other hot drinks, like hot toddies. You can also add infused honey to oatmeal, baked goods, toast, and cheese plates. Some infused honey, like lemon, even has a medicinal purpose – it’s helpful for battling colds and the flu.
I’m a huge tea drinker, so I use honey every single day. Every morning, I make a cup of chai or ginger tea with plenty of honey and milk. It’s a cornerstone of my breakfast routine.
When I realized that I could elevate my tea with my own infused honey for little to no cost, it was a no-brainer. I knew I had to try it. So, I took a gander at my spice cabinet for some inspiration. The options were seemingly limitless. Cinnamon? Clove? Ginger? Peppermint?
In the end, I couldn’t pick just one type of infused honey, so I made two: ginger-turmeric-infused honey and lemon-infused honey. I’ll explain my recipe for each. You can use these recipes to make your own infused honey with your add-ins of choice.
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For either recipe, you’ll need a clean glass jar, honey, and of course, your flavorful add-ins. You may also need a small pot and strainer.
DIY Infused Honey Ingredients
I decided to use ginger, turmeric, and lemon for my two batches of infused honey. But you can infuse honey with pretty much any herbs and spices, and you can also use flowers, fruits, and other add-ins. The sky is truly the limit.
Some popular options include:
- Cinnamon
- Rosemary
- Thyme
- Basil
- Vanilla
- Orange Peel
- Lemon
- Ginger
- Peppermint
- Lavender
- Rose Petal
- Chamomile
- Sage
- Chile
- Hibiscus
- Truffles
Fresh vs. dried: You can use either fresh or dried ingredients, but if you go fresh, the honey will have a shorter shelf life. Fresh ingredients introduce a tiny amount of water to the concoction, and that makes it more likely to grow mold more quickly, so you have to use it within a few weeks. Infused honey with dried ingredients can last for months.
Whole vs. ground: If you use whole spices or herbs, you’ll have to strain them out at the end. Ground spices can simply be left in the honey, so if you want an ultra lazy recipe, you can use all ground spices.
In addition to your add-ins, make sure to pick the right honey to infuse.
It’s best to use raw local honey, and you should also look for one that doesn’t have too strong of a flavor so that the infused ingredients can shine through. Use light-colored clover honey.
DIY Infused Honey Recipe: Ginger Turmeric
Ginger and turmeric are two of my absolute favorite flavor combinations. They both have their own health benefits – ginger soothes your stomach, while turmeric is a natural anti-inflammatory. They also happen to taste fantastic together.
My morning tea habit usually includes at least one of these two spices, if not both. After I made this ginger-turmeric-infused honey, my partner said that it tasted “like tea but without the water,” which is precisely what I was going for!
I used whole ginger root and ground turmeric for this recipe. You can substitute ground ginger, if necessary. One tablespoon of fresh ginger is equivalent to 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger.
I started with 1 cup of raw Louisiana honey in a clean jar. I only had large jars available, but a smaller jar will work just fine.
Then I added 1 tablespoon of finely chopped ginger root.
And I added 1 tablespoon of ground turmeric.
I mixed everything up with a spoon. This is, unsurprisingly, a pretty sticky process, but I was able to minimize the mess by being patient and careful.
Lastly, I placed the honey concoction in my window to infuse. I let it sit there for 5 days.
I stirred it from time to time to make sure that the ginger and turmeric were evenly distributed throughout all of the honey.
Then it was time to strain out the herbs. (If you used ground ginger root, you can skip this step.)
I set up my little straining station.
However, it quickly became clear that the honey was much too thick to strain. I popped it onto the stove for a few minutes until it was nice and liquidy.
Then I tried straining again, and it was a breeze. It took all of 0.5 seconds.
The finished honey’s flavors were wonderfully balanced – not too strong, not too weak. Both the ginger and the turmeric shone through the honey’s sweetness.
I add this honey to my morning tea for an extra boost of my favorite flavors, and it sets my whole day off to a good start!
Since I used fresh ginger root, this honey has a shelf life of 2-3 weeks. If you see any signs of spoilage, toss it!
DIY Infused Honey Recipe: Lemon
While it’s fun to play with flavor combinations, I wanted my second infused honey to be incredibly simple. I catch a cold at least twice a year these days, and my cold remedies always involve lemon and honey in some form, so lemon-infused honey seemed like a natural choice. Lemon and honey are both excellent for soothing a sore throat.
For this honey, I used 1 cup of raw Louisiana honey and 1 tablespoon of lemon zest.
I added both ingredients to a small pot on the stove. I kept the heat relatively low to avoid burning the honey.
After a few minutes, I tasted the honey and decided that it needed more lemon flavor, so I tossed in a few slices of fresh lemon.
I kept the concoction on the stove for about 10 minutes after that.
Then I removed the lemon slices by hand, and I poured the finished honey into a jar.
At this point, you have a few options. The longer that you leave the lemon zest in the honey, the stronger the flavor will be. You can continue to let the lemon zest steep in the honey for a few days before straining. You can strain the lemon zest out of the finished product immediately. Or you can leave the lemon zest in the honey indefinitely. I kept my lemon zest in the honey for a week.
The lemons are fresh ingredients and contain some water, so this honey also has a shelf life of 2-3 weeks. If you see any signs of spoilage, toss it right away.
This lemon-infused honey is both sweet and citrusy, and it makes a great addition to wellness teas and hot toddies.
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