Fire Honey Recipe: A Sweet and Spicy Herbal Remedy

Fire honey is a new favourite of mine! Don’t get me wrong, I love my traditional herbal fire cider recipe. I still take a shot of the tonic every day in the winter months, but fire honey is a wonderfully warming and immune boosting honey that can easily be added to your tea, coffee, oatmeal, yogurt, apple slices at any time.

And my fire honey recipe is ready in less than 5 minutes, instead of a 6 week waiting period. Plus, I have the ingredients on hand at all times, so whether it’s October, April or July I can make this herbal remedy at any given moment.

In this article, I’ll explain my recipe, why each ingredient is included, storage, how to use it and common safety questions.

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What Is Fire Honey?

Fire honey is raw, locally sourced honey mixed with warming/spicy herbs and spices that help boost your circulation, immune system and anti-inflammatory response.

If you’ve been on the homestead/herbal side of social media these days, I’m sure you’ve seen variations of this recipe, everyone uses different combinations and amounts. At the end of the day – it’s about what you genuinely enjoy the taste of and want to consume.

Since it’s just honey mixed with dried spices, there’s no waiting period, no steeping, fermenting or even straining. It’s and easy recipe you can make any time.

Even though I call it a home remedy, it’s also simply a spicy flavoured honey that can be used as food (like on top of apple slices).

Think about the popular ‘hot honey’ combination – it’s literally red pepper flakes mixed with honey. That to some extent is a herbal remedy too – even though I only use it on top of my fancy cottage cheese avocado toast.

As I outlined above too, this is NOT fire cider – that is a completely different herbal remedy, I have three detailed articles outlining what fire cider is you can read about or just review my comparison chart below.

What’s In Fire Honey?

Honey and spices. That’s it. When you use the spices, they need to be dried/ground spices to prevent adding extra moisture into the honey which leads to shelf instability.

You can scale this recipe up or down. The first time I made this recipe, I scaled it down 50%.

• ½ cup raw honey
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

Benefits of the Ingredients in Fire Honey

• Raw Honey: Soothes the throat and cough and has anti-viral, anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties.
• Turmeric: Contains curcumin, studied for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
• Black Pepper: Helps increase the absorption of curcumin from turmeric.
• Ginger: Traditionally used for digestion and nausea – anti-bacterial and decreases inflammation.
• Cinnamon: A warming spice with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory plant compounds.
• Cayenne Pepper: High in vitamin C and iron, and decreases inflammation.

How to Make Fire Honey

Making fire honey is very simple.

Simply add your honey into a small storage jar, then add all the ground spices. Stir thoroughly until evenly combined.

Ensure there are no pockets of dried spices. Once you’re happy with it – put the lid on and store where ever you store your honey.

How to Use Fire Honey

There are many ways you can use fire honey – and most are up to you. Traditionally people will take one small spoonful either straight or into a drink/food. I’ve enjoyed putting a teaspoon on a sliced apple!

You can stir it into warm tea, coffee, drizzle onto oatmeal or mixed in with yogurt – the sky is the limit!

What Tea Goes Best With Fire Honey?

There are plenty of teas that go with fire honey. You really don’t need a special tea, the fire honey brings all the flavour.

I will say this though, adding it to your tea will cause it to deteriorate and the spices float all the way to the bottom of your tea. So you’re not really consuming the fire honey in it’s entirety, but the spice infusion is tasted in the tea water.

• Ginger tea: doubles down on the warming ginger flavour.
• Lemon + hot water: probably the simplest use and good when you don’t want a complicated herbal blend.
• Black tea: handles the stronger spices well.
• Chamomile: sweet/floral contrast with the heat.
• Thyme tea: thyme is a well known cough and cold herb, adding to the medicinal benefits of this fire honey.

If you want more medicinal herbal tea blends, I wrote: 6 medicinal herbal tea blends I use at home.

How to Store Fire Honey

Since this recipe contains raw organic honey and dried spices, it stores well in a clean, dry, tightly sealed jar in a cool, dry cupboard away from sunlight.

Refrigeration isn’t needed for regular honey, and this will just make the mixture thicker and harder to spoon.

Just to note because I know it’s out there, fire honey made with fresh ingredients is a different recipe and would require different storage considerations.

How Long Does Fire Honey Last?

Honey itself is shelf-stable, since I add dried spices we’re not introducing any moisture in the honey which helps it’s safety.

I recommend making small batches and using them up while fresh.

But always check for unusual odors, mold, or other signs of spoilage. Additionally, crystallization of honey does NOT mean it has spoiled. It’s very common for honey to crystalize.

Fire Honey vs. Fire Cider

	Fire Honey	Fire Cider
Base	Raw honey	Apple cider vinegar
Ingredients	Powdered herbs and spices	Fresh herbs, spices and other ingredients infused in vinegar
Prep Time	About 5 minutes	About 10–15 minutes
Infusion Time	None, ready immediately	4-6 weeks
Taste	Sweet, thick and spicy	Sharp, acidic and spicy
How I Use It	Stir a small spoonful into tea, coffee, oatmeal, yogurt or other foods or take straight	Take a small amount on its own or add orange juice to a quick shot
Best For	When you want something sweet, spicy and ready right away	When you want a traditional vinegar-based herbal tonic

Fire Honey and Fire Cider use some of the same warming herbs and spices, but they’re two very different preparations.

If you’d rather make the traditional vinegar-based version, here’s how I make my fire cider. Don’t want to wait several weeks for it to infuse? I also make a quick fire cider using spices and tinctures that’s ready right away.

Is Fire Honey Safe During Pregnancy?

As a mother and someone whose pregnant, I always think about how herbal remedies affect women in these stages.

In general, all these ingredients are familiar culinary ingredients – but the way you’re consuming them here creates a more concentrated herbal remedy than simply having a bit of cinnamon and honey in cinnamon rolls.

Because of the way our society works – evidence for larger/supplemental amounts of these ingredients (turmeric, cayenne, black pepper, cinnamon) during pregnancy is limited.

Although ginger has been thoroughly studied in pregnancy for nausea.

Therefore, talk to a doctor or midwife before regularly using fire honey as an herbal remedy during pregnancy.

More Homemade Herbal Remedies

• How to Make Fire Cider Recipe: Immune-Boosting Tonic for Cold and Flu Season
• Quick Fire Cider Recipe (Fast Immune Boost When You’re Out of the Real Stuff)
• Homemade Herbal Tea Blends: 6 Medicinal Blends I Make at Home
• Natural Remedies Hub

Try the Fire Honey – It Takes 5 Minutes

Fire honey is a great introductory herbal remedy. It’s simple, quick to make and no wait time. You try and it and learn what you like and don’t like, maybe make some adjustments on your own. But I always recommend trying out new remedies because you never know what you might find out.

If you’re on a medicinal herbal journey at home, you can explore all of our hands-on advice in our Natural Remedy Guides, based on what actually works here on our homestead.

We are growing our website with more articles all the time, and we invite you to grow with us. If you have any questions about fire honey or would like to share some of your knowledge with us please leave a comment below. Happy Gardening!