I have given this recipe away so many times that it finally occurred to me I should just write it down somewhere. Not because I mind repeating myself, I would rather repeat myself a hundred times than not share something that works, but because when I was walking a coworker through it, I thought there has got to be a better way than this. So here it is. Written down. Finally.
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This was the first traditional remedy I ever made from scratch. Not a store product swap, not a cleaner version of something I was already buying. Something I made myself from ingredients I already understood. Garlic, onion, ginger, lemon, cayenne, and honey. I had come across the idea from a natural health educator I had been following, and we were heading into cold season, so I made a batch just to have it on hand. Within a couple of weeks one of my kiddos got sick. He started taking three to five teaspoons a day. He did not get any worse than he already was when he started, and he was better within a few days. The rest of us started taking a tablespoon a day the same day he got sick. Nobody else got sick. I have been making it ever since.
None of these ingredients are a secret. Garlic has been used forever for a reason. The sulfur compounds in it are antimicrobial and antiviral and your grandmother probably knew that without ever reading a study. Ginger has been used in traditional medicine for centuries for inflammation and immune support. Onion brings its own antioxidants to the party. Lemon adds vitamin C and helps your body actually absorb what it is taking in. Cayenne gets your blood moving and helps clear congestion. And honey is not just there to make it palatable. Raw honey has its own antibacterial properties, and it acts as a carrier, pulling the beneficial compounds out of everything else and holding onto them. None of this is complicated. It is just ingredients that have always worked, put together in a jar.
I knew it made sense before I tried it. What I did not know was whether my family was going to go along with it. They raised their eyebrows, which at that point was their standard response to me deciding to make something instead of buy it. But they tried it and nobody complained. Their general position was that medicine is not supposed to taste amazing anyway, and this was fine. My husband, bless him, has never once said no to something I have made. I do not know if that is love or survival instinct but either way it works for us.
Here is what goes into it and how I make it.
Rough chop half an onion, three cloves of garlic, one tablespoon of fresh ginger, and half a lemon. Add everything to a mason jar with a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper, or more if you want. Then add enough raw organic honey so that the chopped ingredients make up roughly one third of the total volume. Mix it well, cover it, and let it sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour. I have let it sit for a week, and it is better for it. The longer it sits the more the honey pulls out of those ingredients. When you are ready, strain it through a fine mesh strainer into a clean jar and store it in the refrigerator for up to three months.
Everything is organic. That is not negotiable for me on something like this.
For a light cough or general prevention, one tablespoon a day. If someone in the house is sick, three to five tablespoons a day for that person, one tablespoon a day for everyone else as a preventative. If you cannot stand garlic at all and refuse to use it in any context, I have to shoot you straight: this is going to be a challenge. But if garlic does not bother you, the flavor is completely manageable. My teenagers ask for it when they start not feeling well. That tells you everything you need to know about whether it is terrible.
We also reach for it at the first sign of seasonal allergies, not just colds. The ingredients that make it useful for immune support overlap directly with what helps the body manage an inflammatory response, which is really what seasonal allergies are. If you can find raw honey sourced locally to where you live, even better. Local raw honey contains small amounts of the same pollen your body is reacting to, and regular exposure to small amounts is exactly how you build tolerance over time. That is not a guarantee, but it is a reason to seek out local over generic when you can.
One more thing about this recipe that I stumbled into by accident. I hate wasting anything, and one year I made a large batch and found myself with some that had been sitting in the refrigerator for a couple of months. Rather than throw it out, I used it as a glaze on a pork chop. Did not mention to my husband what it was. He loved it. It also works beautifully in a stir fry, where it lends a kind of Asian-inspired flavor that makes complete sense once you think about what is in it. If you cook with it, you lose the health benefits of the raw ingredients, so what I do is brush some of the uncooked honey on top after the fact to make sure I am getting both.
When I strain it, the solids go straight out to the girls in the Grand Ole Cooprey. You do not want to give chickens a large amount of garlic or onion regularly because it can affect the flavor of their eggs, but a small amount spread across a whole flock is fine, and they will reap some of the same benefits. A cup of strained solids cast broadly across a flock of hens is not going to hurt anybody. Nothing from this recipe goes to waste.
From The Field: A remedy that your teenagers ask for on their own is a remedy worth keeping.
This is what we use and what works for us. It is not medical advice, just lived experience. Start small, use good sense, and do what is right for you.