Cozy up with this homemade Honey Lemon Ginger Tea on chilly nights for a little extra immunity. This tea takes just minutes to make, and is bursting with health benefits you need. Especially during cold and flu season.
Best of all, all you need are three ingredients to make this natural remedy if you're feeling under the weather: fresh ginger, honey and a squeeze of lemon. Well, and some hot water...
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Jump to:
- 🎯 Why This Tea Recipe Works
- 🤸♀️ What are the Health Benefits of Ginger, Lemon, and Honey
- 🧅 Main Ingredients + Notes
- 💡Ideas for Possible Variations
- 🫖 More Teas
- 👩⚕️ What are the Side Effects of Honey Lemon Ginger Tea?
- 🛌 Does Honey Lemon Ginger Tea Help You Sleep?
- Soothing Honey Lemon Ginger Tea for Increased Immunity
Life isn't always easy. And when we're fighting a sore throat, fatigue or just feeling under the weather, it's worse. It's important to our health to carve out time for ourselves.
My solution is to make this immunity-boosting tea sweetened with a natural sweetener, raw honey.
Since it uses honey, this tea is not vegan. However, another beverage I love that is vegan that I highly recommend for health is this Ginger Turmeric Shot.
And I cook up some comfort food full of healthy goodness, like a pot of Persian Yogurt Soup (Ashe Mast), loaded with chickpeas, yellow lentils and rice. Or this White Bean Caulilfower Soup.
🎯 Why This Tea Recipe Works
- Spicy ginger is perfectly balanced with the tartness of the lemon and natural sweetness of honey.
- This recipe is very flexible for allowing you to adjust the amounts of each ingredient to suit your own tastes.
🤸♀️ What are the Health Benefits of Ginger, Lemon, and Honey
Each ingredient of this healthy ginger lemon honey tea packs nutritional benefits to boost immunity when we need it. So, it's important each ingredient is as fresh as possible to maximize those benefits. If you're interested in knowing more, here are some details.
Ginger
- Ginger is good for our digestion, and is effective in treating nausea and vomiting - two classic signs of upset stomachs.
- It also kick-starts your metabolism, and is an effective detoxifier.
- Additionally, its anti-inflammatory properties help fight off the flu and common cold.
Honey
- Honey may help relieve upset stomachs and digestive upsets such as diarrhea.
- Its antioxidant properties are very effective for removing free radicals from the body.
- Honey can help relieve a sore throat by decreasing inflammation and irritation.
- Honey might also be effective as part of oral rehydration therapy
- Honey has been long known for its antibacterial properties.
Lemon
- Lemons boost the immune system with both its abundant vitamin C and potassium.
- Fresh lemon juice squeezed from lemon slices helps to detoxify your body. Even if you don't make this tea, start your day with a glass of water and a lemon wedge.
When you combine all three, my friends, you have a powerful immunity booster. And it's ready in just a few minutes.
Additionally, it boosts energy during the day. Go check out my 5 Easy Ways to Boost Energy post with if your energy flags during the day, and you want more ideas!
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links to products and foods I use in my kitchen. This means that at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. To view my entire storefront of recommended kitchen tools and equipment, check out my shop on Amazon.
🧅 Main Ingredients + Notes
Ingredients make a difference. To maximize the health benefits of this honey ginger tea made with a touch of lemon, use natural ingredients in their raw form. Here are some notes for each ingredient.
🌱 Ginger in a Tube vs Fresh Ginger
- There are several products for ginger paste. But the nutrients are much lower than using fresh ginger.
- Be sure to use raw ginger that's as fresh as possible.
🍋 Bottled Lemon Juice vs Fresh Lemons
This tea is all about immunity boosting health benefits. And there are a few reasons to always use fresh lemon in this recipe.
- Fresher taste.
- No preservatives, which are typically added to bottled lemon juice.
- Increased health benefits over the bottled version.
🍯 Honey
- Use raw, unfiltered honey, as there are no additives or preservatives. Raw honey comes straight from the hive, and has more nutrients than processed honey.
- Raw honey is not pasteurized. But pasteurized sounds good, right? With honey, it's not done for health reasons. Manufacturers pasteurize honey to slow down its natural crystallization.
- Honey not labeled as raw is generally pasteurized to remove particles and bacteria. But this may destroy antioxidants and may contain added sugar.
Bottom line: use raw honey.
💡Ideas for Possible Variations
- Add a couple shavings of tumeric root, or a pinch of the spice powder, to the hot water. This adds a new depth of flavor and an additional boost of immunity.
- Add herbs such as mint or lemon balm.
- Have some fun with whole spices. One idea: crumble part of a cinnamon stick, or smash a few cardamom seeds. Add to the tea infuser with the grated ginger. Ginger and cardamom are cousins and dance together very well.
🫖 More Teas
This tea was recently included in a roundup of 50 teas on the Tea Leafed website (it was number #22!). If you're looking for more tea ideas (and some fabulous information on teas in general), go check it out here!
Another tea I like to make all summer is this Sun Tea with fresh herbs from the garden.
Matcha tea is also loaded with Vitamin C and antioxidants, so you may want to try this Matcha Milk Tea made with boba (from tapioca balls).
And now, let's make this health-boosting tea and relax together.
👩⚕️ What are the Side Effects of Honey Lemon Ginger Tea?
Too much ginger can cause abdominal discomfort and diarrhea. If you have either of these symptoms, reduce the ginger in the tea by half, or eliminate it altogether.
🛌 Does Honey Lemon Ginger Tea Help You Sleep?
This is a great tea to start you day each morning or end your day. There are several reasons I like to end my day with this Honey Lemon Ginger Tea.
- The ritual of making a fresh herbal tea is relaxing, which prepares me for sleep.
- The ingredients aid my digestion, particularly if I had a late dinner.
- The ginger eases any abdominal discomfort I might be having. Ginger can calm nausea too.
- If you have a cold, this tea may ease your congestion.
- Check out this article on Healthline for more bedtime benefits.
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Soothing Honey Lemon Ginger Tea for Increased Immunity
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons coarsely grated unpeeled ginger root or more, for extra spiciness
- 1 teaspoon raw honey, or to taste
Instructions
- Heat the water in the microwave or on the stovetop to boiling. Pour the hot water into a coffee cup.
- Coarsely grate the unpeeled ginger root, and place in a tea infuser.
- Squeeze the lemon juice into the cup of water and drop in the tea infuser. Steep until cool enough to drink, about 5 minutes. Stir in the honey.
- Serve with a little extra honey on the side.
Carol McCollum
Thanks for sharing this. This tea helped me get through this nasty cold I've had for a few wks. I use a lot more lemon juice!! I use juice from 1/2 a big, fresh, organic Meyer lemon from my backyard!! yummmmm….
The Wimpy Vegetarian
Oh I wish I had a Meyer lemon tree!!! Yes, if you're using them, you can use quite a bit more! And honestly, the more, the better! Hope you're feeling better now!
mjskitchen
Guess what I'm going to have for my afternoon tea? 🙂 This is just perfect right now. Thanks!
The Wimpy Vegetarian
Thanks so much MJ!! I hope you liked it!!
Quinton
What is more powerful in order of antioxidants? Green tea or ginger or tumeric?
The Wimpy Vegetarian
Turmeric tea has up to 7 X the antioxidants as ginger tea, and ginger tea generally has more than green tea. All are good choices, and each has its own additional benefits. For example, ginger aids digestion.
Mongalo Kgosana
Hi. I usually add green rooibos tea bag. I am I wrong? It is so delicious.
The Wimpy Vegetarian
I don't look at it as right or wrong - only different. There are a lot of health benefits to rooibos herbal tea - and it just adds a new flavor to it. This tea that I posted is more of a ginger tea with honey and lemon.
Georgia
I've just had my fertility acupuncturist "prescribe" as much ginger and lemon tea as I can drink - to warm my internal temperature. I'm loving this treatment!
And now writing a shopping list to try out all the other recipes I'm discovering on your website!
The Wimpy Vegetarian
I hope you find more recipes to enjoy here! Thanks so much!
Fiona Louise Barrow
I drink freshly squeeze lemon juice and a drop of honey in warm water first thing every morning for over five years now and i can say i feel so good especially in my stomach. No flu or cold for over 5 years. Its the best form if vitamin C to boost your immune health.
The Wimpy Vegetarian
I'm not a great fan of drinking plain water, and find this a great way to also get enough (or at least a lot more) water in me every day. I haven't had a cold or flu since I started doing this either!
Jill Trott
I'm not a traditional tea drinker but love ginger lemon honey tea. To make it easier, I get a bag of lemons and squeeze them all at once, put the juice into ice cube trays and freeze it. I do the same with the ginger, but I put the peeled ginger in my blender with water, puree the ginger, strain out the fibrous part and pour the ginger water into ice cube trays to freeze. Each morning I place one cube of each in my mug, add honey, and pour in the hot water. Perfect tea in minutes!
The Wimpy Vegetarian
That is a fabulous fabulous idea! I love that! I'm going to do that over the weekend. Thanks so much 🙂
Remco Van Hal
I love this mixture of ingredients. I however like to slice blocks of ginger, but them in boiling water. After few hours when I want some tea I just boil normal water and add about 25% of the cup in boiled ginger water :D.
squeeze half of a fresh lemon.
1 tsp of honey from my friends farm from switzerland 😀
The Wimpy Vegetarian
What a great idea to make ginger water for the tea! I like that! And the honey you use sounds really special!
Mathew
Lemon tea helps you from mental health issues and it helps more for digestive system.
The Wimpy Vegetarian
Ginger also helps with digestion, so it's a double bonus!
Kathleen
The perfect tea I feed to my hubby on days when his anxiety gets the better of him, it's so easy and delicious!
The Wimpy Vegetarian
There is something so soothing about having a cup of this tea! Thanks for letting me know!