Herbal Honey: A Sweet Holiday Gift
Written by Meg, Contributing Writer
With the holidays nearly upon us, I know many of us are already thinking of the many gifts we are preparing to share with others this season. If you’re like me, you also have the burden of wanting to share with those around us, but feeling the pinch of a tight budget. Today I’m going to share one of my favorite ways to ease the burden, and sweeten your holiday gift-giving.
Flavored honey is among the easiest and most delicious herbal treats. While I am only sharing how to make sage and cinnamon honey, there is no limit to what you can use.
However, please make sure whatever you use has not been sprayed – it doesn’t necessarily need to be organic. The most frugal option is herbs that you’ve grown in your own garden, but I have yet to meet a gardener who wouldn’t gladly share a few sprigs from their plants.
I’d like to apologize for the quality of the video – I wasn’t able to locate our videocamera, and we had to make do with our regular camera. I’m also speaking quietly, due to the 3 sleeping babies in the next room. 🙂
A few details I forgot to mention:
- If you’d like to remove the herbs from your flavored honey, and you haven’t left them in large enough pieces, you can re-heat the honey gently, and strain to remove the plant material.
- If you’d like to make the vanilla honey I mentioned at the end, you don’t need to use an entire vanilla bean for just one cup of honey – it makes it very potent! If I’m using a whole bean, I usually use at least 2-3 cups of honey, and it flavors it perfectly.
- You can also tie raffia around the neck of the jar before giving as a gift, although we recycle our old spice jars for our herbal honey gifts. They are the perfect size to tuck into a gift basket for a hostess gift, as well as for a stocking stuffer for the herbalist on your list, paired with a jar of your favorite tea blend.
- In case you didn’t notice… I like honey on toast! My husband pointed out the number of times I let you all know that… but it really is very good on many different things – not just toast! 🙂
Enjoy!
Homemade vanilla extract is very easy to make and well received:
http://fimby.tougas.net/how-to-make-vanilla-extract
I love this idea!!!! I have made several homemade gifts for Christmas before, but I kind of like trying something different each year. (I think I get bored easily.)
I was thinking it might be nice to include suggested uses and/or recipes along with the honey. You mentioned honey-herb chicken. Do you have a recipe for that or should I just google it?
I will be purchasing some local honey for this very purpose soon. Thank you for the wonderful idea!!
@Tanya, I like to try something different, too, although I usually try to keep some standards – they are the ones people ask for every year… this being one of them. I do use different herbs each year, and base the rest of our gifts along that theme: last year’s was spice, and I did cinnamon honey, gingerbread, a blended spice tea, and a jar of spiced cider. 🙂
My honey-mustard chicken is one of those “literal” recipes… I mix sage honey with a spicy mustard and paint my chicken. 🙂 But you can google one and use that too.
I have another question for you. (Sorry.) How long will the honey last? I searched this on the internet and a site mentioned that it should be used within a couple of weeks because it can go bad. Honey is a natural preservative, so this kind of confused me. What has your experience been? Would this be too early to get some honey going for Christmas gifts?
@Tanya, I’ve never had any honey go bad, even when I left plant matter in it. I would try to make sure it’s used up before 6 months, though, just to be on the safe side?
I would definitely start your honey at least 2 weeks in advance. I have some I flavored for a month, and I didn’t notice any huge difference in taste with more time… But if you have the time now – have at it! Always better to get it done without the added pressure of holidays. I am using the sage honey I made for the tutorial for our Thanksgiving bread rolls. 🙂
@Meg,
I was thinking the honey would be great on rolls as well! Actually, a herb infused honey would make a nice gift combined with some garlic infused olive oil. Mmmmm, my mouth is watering.
@Tanya, I meant to tell you – the sage honey worked fantastically well in the whole wheat rolls I made for Thanksgiving… And I used cinnamon honey for our “next day” breakfast of cinnamon rolls – those were perfect! 🙂 I love coming up with new ways to use this!
That was a fantastic idea and video! I have an incredible amount of sage in my garden year round so this is a great way to use some of it up. Thanks for sharing it.
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful gift idea. I absolutely love it!
What a lovely idea– I’m making vanilla extract for Christmas this year, and I think I will add cinnamon honey to the gift stash. I love giving beautiful yet “practical” gifts.
I *LOVE* this idea. Thank you for sharing it. However I’m a little confused with the last part. I made a few different ones from your great suggestions. So I’ve got some sage, some cinnamon, and some vanilla honey all sitting in the jars with the lids on in my cupboard. My question is, are they ready to decorate and give as gifts after they’ve sat for 2 weeks, or after the 2 weeks do I need to strain them all and then put them back in the jars and decorate and give them as gifts? Thanks! 🙂
@Kristine, It’s up to you! 🙂 I like to keep the cinnamon sticks in my cinnamon honey when I give it as gifts (with red checked cloth over the top, tied with raffia… it’s incredibly cute. 🙂 ) However, I do strain my sage honey – it gets REALLY potent after 2 weeks, and the leaves just aren’t as pretty (I usually chop mine, but the whole leaves still look nice). You can strain everything out and then re-bottle, or just leave it. It really depends on the amounts you used… I don’t know about you, but I only give my big quart jar of vanilla honey to the “special” people in my life 😉
Meg, how many cinnamon sticks per 1 cup honey? I’m looking forward to making this. Thanks, Michelle
Could you post your cinnamon oil honey recipe in a printed form rather thn the video. Thank you so much.
See above reply.
I use 1/4 c cinnamon chips (like actual pieces of the bark, not candy 😉 ). Or, 2 cinnamon sticks.
Hi Meg,
I love the presentation of your honey jar! Did you knit it and add the embellishments? Please share your pattern to make along with the herbal honey. Thank you. Sylvia
Hi Sylvia,
No, I didn’t. It is lovely though!
…Thank you so much for the tutorial! Def’ will be doing this soon. But I must ask, did you make the cute lil’ cover on the jar too? Is there a tutorial for that as well? Do tell. That is adorable! :o)
…”Merry Christmas!”
…Blessings. :o)
No, I didn’t. I wish I was so crafty! 🙂
Meg: Please share your recipe for cinnamon honey. I’m not able to get it from the video you provided a couple years ago. Thank you!
Heat 1 c of honey gently, add 1/4 c of flavoring – chopped herbs, cinnamon chips, etc. Pour into jar, let sit for 2 weeks, strain if desired, and rebottle. Hope that helps. 🙂