You probably know that garlic is a powerhouse of health boosting goodness… and you probably know the same is true of raw honey, as well!
Truthfully, both garlic and honey are some of the best, purest, most all natural, infection-fighting, health-boosting foods that we know of! They’ve been used since humans have been healing our bodies with food, and they’re just as useful and potent today as they’ve ever been.
It’s no surprise that when the two are combined, you get an incredibly powerful natural medicine, and (possibly surprisingly) the result tastes great!
Garlic honey is easier to make than a cup of coffee and takes no challenging preparation or care.
To use it, simply swallow a spoonful of the garlic honey whenever you want to! This will help keep your immune system strong, and fight bacteria and viruses in your body, even if you’re not sick.
When I start feeling the unmistakable early symptoms of a cold or upper respiratory infection – sore throat, tingling in the nose, sinus pressure, a sniffly or runny nose – I immediately eat a chunk of the honey-saturated-garlic and swallow a spoonful or two of the honey.
It’s not unusual for symptoms to completely clear up within a few hours!
Because this is one of my favorite, tried-and-true natural remedies, I wanted to share it with you so you can start enjoying the powerful healing benefits yourself!
So, grab your ingredients from the pantry, and let’s make garlic honey, right now!
A quick disclaimer: I am an affiliate marketer, and if you click any linked product in this post, and decide to buy the product, I get a small commission from the sale with no additional cost to you. I only link products that I use myself or that I trust completely, and that I know will help you achieve a healthier, natural lifestyle!
How to Make Garlic Honey
To whip up a batch of garlic honey, you’ll need
- A clean sterilized glass jar with a lid https://amzn.to/4sO13ov
- Several cloves’ worth of peeled garlic https://amzn.to/49WqXPi
- Organic raw honey https://amzn.to/4qmQo2n
- Wooden spoon https://amzn.to/4qP5ttb
(As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.) I am not a medical professional so please do your own research.
Always us a wooden spoon when using honey. This protects the flavor, enzymes, and nutritional value of the honey.
There is no specific amount or ratio for this recipe, but I usually add enough garlic to fill my container about 3/4 of the way full.
Put the peeled garlic into the jar, and cover it generously with honey!
(I usually add enough honey to cover the garlic, plus about another inch of honey on top… or, just fill the jar with honey up to the shoulders, and leave about an inch of air space below the lid. Covering the garlic completely is the goal.)
Now that the garlic and honey are combined, put the lid on the jar and tighten it well.
Store it somewhere cool and dry at room temperature, and wait.
Within about a day, you’ll notice the garlic makes the honey very runny. It’s easy to shake the mixture, and you’ll want to shake it about once or twice a day. This keeps the garlic cloves coated in honey, so that they can’t begin to mold.
Just turn the jar upside down and back up a few times. There’s no need to vigorously shake it… just swish the contents well.
Over time, the juices in the garlic and the good bacteria, natural yeasts, and sugars in the honey will begin to ferment. This is so important because the fermentation will boost the medicinal potency of your garlic honey!
(Keeping it in the refrigerator is not only unnecessary, it also keeps the fermentation process from happening!)
*********You’ll also want to “burp” the jar once a day – which means open the lid and release the pressure created by the fermentation process, then screw the lid back on. If you don’t do this, the jar can bust, so be sure not to forget this step!
Your garlic honey should be fully fermented in about three months. It will last quite a long time when stored in a cool, dry, dark place, too – up to a year or more. (If you haven’t used it all by then!)
Be Meticulous about Kitchen Safety and Hygiene
Follow these tips so that your honey lasts for months without spoiling or molding.
- Use Good Kitchen Hygiene
Use clean utensils, clean hands, and clean foods.
Do not use garlic that is old, moldy, or showing signs of spoilage.
Only use raw honey, and do not use it if it’s cloudy or has mold growing on the surface. - Sterilize your jar and lid before adding ingredients.
To do this, fill a large pot with fresh water and heat it to boiling. Then submerge your jar(s) and lid(s) in the boiling water for 10 – 12 minutes to kill any microorganisms living on or inside the jar.
Then, using a clean set of tongs or a long metal kitchen spoon, get the jar(s) and lid(s) out of the water and set on a clean towel to air dry and cool off.
Canning Kit https://amzn.to/4pFTYn1
(As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.) I am not a medical professional so please do your own research.
If you have the capability, you can also use the sterilize function on your dishwasher to clean and sterilize your jar(s) and lid(s).
Be sure your jars are completely dry before adding garlic and honey, to prevent having too much moisture in your mixture that might cause it to spoil. - Use a PH test to prevent botulism.
Botulism is a food borne illness caused by a bacteria named Clostridium botulinum, and it sometimes is found naturally in honey. However, in order for the spores to grow, the PH of the honey needs to be above 4.6.
The PH of honey ranges from 3.2-5.4, depending on the flowers the bees used to make the honey.
The PH range of garlic is 5.3-6.3, so adding it to your honey will raise the PH a little bit. Thankfully a quick litmus test {Link to Amazon litmus test} will tell you the specific PH of your garlic honey when you mix it. https://amzn.to/45xSjJd
(As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.) I am not a medical professional so please do your own research.
If the honey is at or above 4.6, just add a splash of a good-quality, organic apple cider vinegar with the mother, and that will bring the PH down to a safe level.
Luckily, botulism is easily detectible in your jarred garlic honey, as it will show typical signs of spoilage, such as cloudiness, a bad smell, or bitter taste. If you suspect your honey has spoiled, do not eat it.
Botulism poisoning is a dangerous condition, and you can learn the symptoms here. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/botulism/symptoms-causes/syc-20370262
Garlic Honey Frequently Asked Questions
If you’ve never made garlic honey before, you’ll probably have some questions about it, even though it’s so simple to make and use. I’ll try to answer all of the most frequently asked questions here!
Is It Really Safe to Leave the Honey Out at Room Temperature?
Though it may seem counter-intuitive to keep food out at room temperature for months, garlic honey is perfectly safe. It actually needs to be left out at room temperature… Here’s why:
First off, honey’s low water content means it’s perfectly safe and shelf-stable stored at room temperature. In fact, honey has no expiration date.
Second, the fermentation allows it to be safe and shelf-stable at room temperature, as well.
It’s important though, to keep an eye on your honey and check for signs of spoilage or loss of potency before your consume it, especially as your garlic honey gets older.
Typically, garlic honey is best (at peak freshness) between 3 and 12 months.
Signs of spoilage or old age include the honey becoming cloudy or murky, a sour or stale scent (rather than the tasty, tangy scent of honey and garlic), and mold growing on the surface of the honey.
If you see signs your honey has gone bad, do not use it. Throw it away.
How Does the Fermenting Process Work?
Fermentation is the process of bacteria metabolizing (eating and digesting) sugars. It gives foods a longer shelf life and boosts their health benefits, too. When the moisture, bacteria, and yeasts from the garlic and honey combine, they begin to ferment, producing carbon dioxide gas.
After several days to a couple of weeks, you’ll notice little bubbles rising through your honey. This is a good sign! Those are carbon dioxide bubbles, and they show that your garlic and honey have begun active fermentation.
By the time your honey is about a month old, and peaking at the three-month mark, you’ll notice that the bubbling has slowed or stopped. The garlic will be slightly softened and look a bit translucent. And, the flavor and scent of the honey will have transformed from crisp and garlicy to gentler, more tangy and subtle.
After this point your honey has transformed into a delicious elixir at its peak potency and you’ll reap the strongest healing properties from now on…
Don’t forget, though, that garlic and honey are both such powerful healers in their own right, that even freshly mixed honey and garlic will help fight off sickness and boost your body’s overall health!
What Type of Jar Works Best for Garlic Honey?
A regular canning jar with a tight-fitting lid is perfectly fine. A dark amber or green jar will help keep the contents fresher for longer – but won’t be as pretty to look at, and you won’t be able to see the fermenting process working, either, so don’t be afraid to use clear glass.
Clear Mason Jar https://amzn.to/4sO13ov
Amber Mason Jar https://amzn.to/49DZOiP
If there’s another jar that you like, and want to use instead, no worries! The only consideration I’d suggest is that it have a mouth that’s wide enough to fit cloves of garlic into easily… one that you can pour honey into without making too much mess… and that has a tightly fitting lid.
What Kind of Garlic Works Best?
It’s important to use the highest-quality, freshest garlic you can get. I strongly suggest that you use an organic garlic still in whole cloves.
If you can grow your own organic garlic and harvest it straight from your garden, that would give you the best-possible end product, because the garlic would be grown in your local ecosystem, with conditions matched to the biome you share with it!
Garlic with the skins intact that you peel yourself will always be the freshest.
Pre-peeled garlic that you buy in a store will not be as potent as the garlic you peel yourself, and it may have added preservatives that you do not want in your garlic-honey!
While peeling garlic may seem tedious at times, it’s well worth the effort. If you’d like, you can use the flat side of a knife to lightly crush the garlic cloves. This breaks the peels and makes it easy to skin.
Personally, I just cut the flat root-end of the garlic off of each clove and peel the skin off. I enjoy it. I find it a soothing and wholesome part of the homemade medicine making process.
What Kind of Honey Works Best?
When making garlic honey, it is absolutely essential that you use raw, unheated, unfiltered honey.
Try to buy locally grown honey, if you can! Not only will the honey be top-quality, but it’s important to support your local beekeepers, as well.
If you can’t find a good source of raw, local honey, this {Insert Amazon brand/link here} is a great choice, as well.
The reason you need raw honey to make garlic honey is because processed honey (usually sold in grocery stores) will have been filtered and heat treated. These treatments will kill all of the naturally occurring bacteria and yeasts in the honey. These elements are what make honey such a strong healing food and are responsible for the fermentation process that transforms a garlic-honey mixture into the powerful, delicious, fermented elixir you’re trying to achieve.
How Can I Use Garlic Honey?
Garlic honey is delicious! Like, so good I cannot describe how tasty it is. If you’ve never tried it before, you’ll probably be very surprised by how much you love it!
In fact, it’s easy to just eat your way through a jar, whether you’re sick or not!
Eating the fermented garlic honey straight from the jar is best because heat breaks down chemical compounds into simpler forms that are not as strong as they were before cooking.
Still, garlic honey is an incredibly delicious addition to salads, as a meat glaze (like grilled honey garlic chicken… YUM!!), or to toss vegetables in before roasting.
When it comes to cooking with garlic honey, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination and tastebuds! (Just be aware that the resulting foods may not be quite as potent, medicinally.)
What Does Garlic Honey Actually Do for My Health?
Garlic, honey, and fermented foods each offer a myriad of benefits for your health and wellness. Combined, these benefits are almost unbeatable!
Garlic is well known for its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and lipid-lowering properties. Thanks to these properties, garlic can prevent and treat infections, and support the body’s systems in preventing major health problems like cancer and heart disease, while also killing bacterial and viral infections throughout the body.
Honey helps prevent and treat several types of cancers, heart disease, and diabetes. Honey is an anti-inflammatory that can dramatically relieve and treat asthma, as well as cold symptoms like a sore throat and fever. Honey also helps heal wounds and burns by stimulating white blood cells and acting as a germ-proof barrier. It also provides a natural source of sugars that give your body a boost of healthy energy.
Fermented foods are wonderful for helping regulate and promote a healthy gut biome and control inflammation in the gut, as well. Fermented foods also make nutrients more available to the body by breaking complex nutrient compounds into simpler forms that are easier to absorb.
When you use garlic honey regularly, you’re offering your body a steady stream of antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial support, wound healing properties, healthy carbohydrates, digestive support, and so much more.
It’s also important to note that your mental health will be much better when you are healthy than if you’re sick or struggling with inflammation and digestion problems. This secondary benefit is so vital to living well.
Eating garlic honey means you’re proactively preventing a host of infections and health challenges by supporting your immune system and gut health. When you’re getting sick, you can often relieve or completely stop the symptoms without any antibiotics or major medical interventions at all!
(In today’s age of antibiotic-resistant super bugs, not only can natural medicines work together with and enhance clinical treatment, they sometimes work better than antibiotics! Using natural medicines also prevents creating more antibiotic-resistant bacteria.)
I simply can’t overstate how important it is to support your body’s natural healing systems with powerful, naturally occurring medicines that good-quality, organic foods have built right in.
Making your own garlic honey is easy and you get all of these benefits in a delicious, delightful, concoction that you can keep stored in your cupboard for up to a year!
Can I Add Any Other Health-Boosting Ingredients to My Garlic Honey?
Yes! It’s not uncommon for folks to add other wonderful ingredients such as chunks of ginger, lemon rinds, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, chamomile flowers, thyme… Try whatever you’d like to get the health benefit you’re focusing on.
(Just remember to use organic and ethically sourced ingredients, and to label your jars with the ingredients and date you made them.)
- Cinnamon https://amzn.to/49Ey6Te
- Cayenne Pepper https://amzn.to/49Ey6Te
- Chamomile Flowers https://amzn.to/4pEcLiq
- Thyme https://amzn.to/4pBr3Rb
(As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)I am not a medical professional so please do your own research.
Is Garlic Honey Dangerous?
In general, no, garlic honey is not dangerous.
However, it is dangerous to give any type of honey to babies under one year old. There is a risk of infants getting infant botulism, which is very dangerous.
Also, very occasionally, a person will be allergic to honey, or the garlic in it. These allergic reactions are rare, but watch out for unusual effects when trying a new food of any kind.
Finally, it’s very dangerous to eat spoiled or moldy garlic honey. Please throw it away if you think it’s gone bad!
Did you whip up a lovely jar of garlic honey for your home?
I certainly hope so! The sooner your garlic honey is made, the more likely it’ll be ready and fully fermented the next time you’re feeling under the weather.
Also, I can’t wait for you to taste it for yourself. It’s one of the most tasty homemade medicines I have in my cabinet!
If you have any questions, tips, or feedback on how it worked for you, please drop a comment below! I try to read and respond to all of the comments I get, and I value each and every one of them!
To your great health and happiness,
Cariel
Sources:
Potential Health Benefit of Garlic Based on Human Intervention Studies: A Brief Overview. PubMed. Ansary, John, et al. July 20, 2015. Retrieved December 21, 2025.
Phenolic Compounds in Honey and Their Associated Health Benefits: A Review – PubMed. Cianciosi, Danila. September 11, 2018. Retrieved December 21, 2025.
Botulism – Symptoms and causes. Mayo Clinic. July 12, 2022. Retrieved December 21, 2025.
Clostridium botulinum. USDA Food Safety Information Sheet. Retrieved December 21, 2025.
How Long to Ferment Garlic in Honey?. Chef’s Resource. Retrieved December 21, 2025
Potential Health Benefit of Garlic Based on Human Intervention Studies: A Brief Overview. PubMed. Ansary, John, et al. July 20, 2015. Retrieved December 21, 2025.
11 Health Benefits of Eating a Spoonful of Honey Every Day. Medicine Net. June 25, 2022. Retrieved December 21, 2025.
Effectiveness of honey for symptomatic relief in upper respiratory tract infections: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Evidence Based Medicine. August 18, 2020. Retrieved December 21, 2025
What Happens to Your Body When You Add Fermented Foods to Your Diet. Very Well Health. June 25, 2025. Retrieved December 21, 2025
What Happens to Your Body When You Take Garlic Honey?. Very Well Health. September 11, 2025. Retrieved December 21, 2025.
Healing Herbal Honeys — The Power of Garlic & Honey. Grow. Create. Sip. November 20, 2025. Retrieved December 21, 2025.
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