Delicious healing honey fermented garlic is so easy to make and has a ton of uses including soothing a sore through AND adding great flavor to an amazing stir fry sauce. A fun way to preserve fresh garlic.
What is honey fermented garlic?
Honey fermented garlic is a simple to make fermentation recipe that uses just two ingredients, honey and garlic.
In this recipe fresh raw garlic is fermented in raw, unpasteurized honey.
Benefits of honey fermented garlic
The benefits of honey fermented garlic are many. Most people know that garlic is a powerhouse of great nutrition. Garlic is a well known remedy for may common cold symptoms, as well as yeast infections and ear aches. Honey also has a reputation for its healing benefits. Honey is commonly used to soothe a sore throat or help a cough.
Combining these two excellent ingredients and using the magic of fermentation really makes for a tasty and beneficial food.
How does honey preserve garlic?
There are many ways to preserve garlic. From pickling, canning, dehydrating, freeze-drying, storing in oil or salt. Fermentation is a great way to extend the life of any vegetable, garlic is one of them.
A few things to know about honey is that it is acidic. According to this website honey has a pH of somewhere between 3.4 and 6.1, with an average of 3.9. A pH of 7 is considered neutral. Anything less than 7 is acidic.
Why does the acidity of honey matter? Because bad bacteria, like botulism, cannot grow in an acidic environment. That’s a good thing.
Sugar also works to remove moisture from food, this also helps preserve the food. Inside the sticky sweet honey is also an oxygen free environment and mold cannot grow without oxygen. Another reason honey is a good preservative.
One of my favorite ways to preserve fresh garlic is by making toum. Toum is a delicious garlic spread made with oil, salt, lemon and garlic. After making toum, it will keep in the fridge for months. You can use it as you would fresh garlic. Read all about how I make garlic toum here.
Honey fermented garlic uses
There are many ways to use fermented honey garlic. Both for health and for taste. My favorite way to use honey fermented garlic culinarily is in stir fry sauce. Since a good stir fry sauce would commonly call for a small amount of sugar, honey can easily take its place. And garlic is a must in any stir fry or fried rice. It’s a win win.
For a good stir fry sauce I use tamari, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, green onion, chili flakes, honey fermented garlic and dulse seaweed flakes. Adding this to any stir fried vegetables, as a marinade for meats or even to fried rice is delicious.
Drizzling fermented honey garlic onto warm cornbread with lots of butter is also an amazing way to use this fermented food.
If you’re not feeling well, some homemade chicken broth with good salt and a spoon of garlic honey stirred in is so warm and comforting.
Honey garlic chicken is another known winning combination. Using this honey fermented garlic along side chicken is a fabulous idea.
Lastly, just try eating a small spoonful straight. There’s no shame in that!
Honey fermented garlic and botulism
Many people worry about fermentation and making yourself sick. Most of the worry is unfounded. Once you understand how fermentation works, you can understand why it is a safe food preservation method.
Honey specifically is thought to come with a risk of botulism. I think that’s because botulism spores are sometimes found in honey, as they are in nature. These spores are harmless unless they are given the perfect environment to make the botulism toxin. Ingesting the botulism toxin can make you very sick.
However, botulism spores cannot develop into a toxin in an acidic environment. Honey is acidic, so honey won’t contain the toxin. It’s thought that if you give honey to infants, that don’t necessarily have an acidic enough stomach yet, they can grow the toxin and become ill. It’s not advised to feed honey to infants.
You can read more about botulism on the CDC website here.
Honey fermented garlic recipe
This recipe is so simple it might be hard to believe. Most of the work is done by the bacterial process. Besides peeling some garlic and checking on your jar once a day for a while, this recipe is pretty hands off.
Equipment:
- Canning jar
- Lid and band
- Parchment paper
- Knife
- Cutting board
Ingredients:
- Garlic
- Raw honey
Method:
- Peel garlic.
- You can chop garlic, or leave the cloves whole.
- Place garlic in a canning jar that’s twice as big as your volume of garlic.
- Pour raw honey over garlic to just cover.
- Put a piece of parchment paper over the opening of the jar then screw on the canning lid and band.
- Ferment at room temperature flipping over once a day, and opening the jar to burp it.
- Start using the garlic anytime. It can stay room temperature indefinitely or you can move it to the fridge when it’s fermented to your liking.
watch the video
Recipe Notes:
- Garlic may float, that’s okay. By flipping it over once a day and moving things around it will prevent mold from growing on the surface. After about a month, you won’t need to flip it daily anymore.
- Burping the jar daily is important for the first at least 10 or so, but keep your eye on it daily for at least a month. Fermentation causes c02 and that could potentially build up in the jar and cause the jar to break or leak.
- Gasses will stop being produced eventually and the honey garlic can be stored in a cool dark place indefinitely.
How long to ferment honey garlic
There’s a wide range. The fermentation process can last around 30 days but you can start eating the honey garlic at anytime during that first month. After it’s fermented it can still stay at room temperature. Just leave it in a cool dark place.
I don’t move my honey ferments to the refrigerator like I do my fermented vegetables. I leave my honey fermented garlic in my pantry and use it until it’s gone!
Do I really need to check on the honey garlic everyday?
Yes, at first. It’s not hard. At some point during your day you will be in your kitchen. It only takes a few seconds to loosen the lid and let any gasses out, tighten the lid and flip the jar around.
I leave my honey fermented garlic on a shelf in my kitchen where I can see it so I don’t accidentally forget about it. Once a day I visit all my in process ferments. I look at the jar, open it and smell it, listen to it, feel it against my face and sometimes taste it.
This time I spend with my ferments is an opportunity to witness the process first hand. All my learning about fermentation has come from these moments of observation.
After 20 to 30 days I can see that the ferment isn’t making new gasses and has mellowed out. Then I can move it to my pantry where I won’t check on it as often.
Anyone can follow a recipe and stuff some food in a jar and forget about it on the counter. If you want to learn fermentation, observing what happens after that is so important.
Have you made honey fermented garlic? Do you do anything different than I described in this article? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!
Pin this honey fermented garlic recipe for later
Honey Fermented Garlic
Equipment
- Canning jar
- Lid and band
- Parchment paper
- Knife
- Cutting board
Ingredients
- Garlic
- Raw honey
Instructions
- Peel garlic.
- You can chop garlic, or leave the cloves whole.
- Place garlic in a canning jar that’s twice as big as your volume of garlic.
- Pour raw honey over garlic to just cover.
- Put a piece of parchment paper over the opening of the jar then screw on the canning lid and band.
- Ferment at room temperature flipping over once a day, and opening the jar to burp it.
- Start using the garlic anytime. It can stay room temperature indefinitely or you can move it to the fridge when it’s fermented to your liking.
I just started 2 jars, one chopped and one whole cloves. I’m very excited to use it soon. Also, I used you fermented dill pickle recipe on my garden cucumbers. They turned out delicious. I transferred them to the refrigerator today. Thank you Lanni.
Excellent! Pickle season might be my favorite time of the year! The clove in with the garlic sounds very interesting. Let me know how you like it. Thanks so much for sharing!