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If you’ve been around the homesteading world for any amount of time, you’ve probably seen a mysterious jar filled with garlic cloves and honey sitting on someone’s counter.

And if your first thought was…

Wait, we’re putting GARLIC in honey?!

Yes. Yes, we are.

Garlic honey is one of those incredibly simple old-fashioned preparations that fits perfectly into a homestead kitchen. You need only two ingredients—raw honey and fresh garlic—and a little patience while they work their magic together.

The result is a sweet, savory, garlicky honey that can be eaten by the spoonful or drizzled into marinades, salad dressings, roasted vegetables, sauces, and other recipes.

It’s also traditionally used during cold and flu season, which is why I especially love making a fresh jar as we head into fall.

And if you happen to grow your own garlic or harvest honey from your own bees?

Even better.

Let’s make some!

What Is Garlic Honey?

Garlic honey is exactly what it sounds like: fresh garlic cloves submerged in honey and allowed to infuse and ferment over time.

As the garlic sits in the honey, it releases moisture. The honey gradually becomes thinner, while the garlic mellows and loses some of that sharp raw-garlic bite.

Eventually you end up with soft, sweet-and-savory garlic cloves surrounded by deeply flavored honey.

And although social media may make it look like the newest homesteading trend, combining honey and garlic is hardly a new idea.

Both ingredients have been valued as foods for centuries.

Sometimes the simplest things really are the best.

Benefits of Garlic Honey

Before we get into making it, let’s talk about why people love keeping this little jar around.

Garlic honey isn’t a miracle cure, and I wouldn’t treat it as a replacement for medical care or medication. But garlic and honey are both fascinating foods in their own right.

Garlic Contains Beneficial Plant Compounds

Fresh garlic contains sulfur-containing compounds. One of the best known is allicin, which forms when garlic is chopped or crushed.

Garlic has been extensively studied for potential cardiovascular and other health effects, although the results and strength of evidence depend on the preparation and outcome being studied.

It’s one more reason I love finding easy ways to incorporate garlic into everyday meals.

Honey Has Antioxidant Properties

Honey naturally contains a variety of plant compounds, including polyphenols.

The exact composition varies depending on the flowers the bees visited, which is one of the things that makes local and home-harvested honey so interesting.

Honey Can Help Soothe a Cough

This is probably one of honey’s best-known traditional uses—and one with some modern evidence behind it.

Honey may help reduce coughing associated with an upper respiratory infection, particularly in children over one year old.

That makes a spoonful of honey a comforting option when throats are feeling irritated.

Important: Never give honey—including garlic honey—to a baby under 12 months old because of the risk of infant botulism.

Garlic Has Antimicrobial Activity

Garlic and some of its compounds have demonstrated antimicrobial properties in laboratory research.

That doesn’t mean eating garlic honey will cure an infection, but it does help explain why garlic has such a long history in traditional food and wellness practices.

It’s an Easy Way to Eat More Garlic

Sometimes the practical benefit is the best one.

Raw garlic?

Whew.

Garlic that’s been sitting in honey?

Much easier.

As it sits, the flavor changes. The cloves become sweeter and less harsh, making them much easier to incorporate into foods.

How to Make Garlic Honey

And now for the ridiculously easy part.

You only need two ingredients.

Ingredients

Fresh garlic cloves
Raw honey

That’s it!

The amount you need depends entirely on the size of your jar. I prefer making smaller batches rather than one enormous jar.

You’ll also need a clean, dry glass jar with a lid.

Step 1: Peel Your Garlic

Separate your garlic bulb into individual cloves and remove all of the papery skins.

Inspect each clove as you go.

Use firm, fresh garlic and discard anything that’s moldy, rotten, or questionable.

You can leave smaller cloves whole. Larger cloves can be cut in half.

I also like to lightly crush or slice some of the cloves.

Step 2: Let Chopped or Crushed Garlic Rest

Here’s an interesting little garlic trick.

When garlic is chopped or crushed, enzymes begin reactions that lead to the formation of allicin.

So if I’m crushing my garlic, I like to let it sit for roughly 10 minutes before adding it to the honey.

It’s a tiny extra step that requires basically no work.

My favorite kind of homestead chore.

Step 3: Add Garlic to Your Jar

Place the prepared garlic into your clean jar.

Don’t pack it completely full.

I like filling the jar roughly halfway with garlic, leaving plenty of room for honey and movement.

Remember that things can get bubbly as the mixture sits.

You definitely don’t want honey overflowing all over your counter.

Ask any fermenting homesteader how they learned that lesson.

Step 4: Cover Completely With Honey

Pour raw honey over the garlic.

Make sure the garlic is thoroughly coated.

The cloves may float toward the top, especially in the beginning.

That’s normal.

Leave some headspace at the top of your jar rather than filling it all the way to the rim.

Then add your lid. I prefer to add parchment paper between the jar and the lid.

Step 5: Keep the Garlic Coated

During the early stage, the garlic loves floating to the top.

One easy solution is to gently turn the tightly closed jar upside down and back again periodically so everything gets recoated with honey.

Then return it upright.

I like putting the jar on a small plate while it’s active just in case anything leaks.

Because honey is wonderful.

Cleaning fermented honey off a countertop?

Less wonderful.

Step 6: Watch for Bubbles

After a little while, you may begin seeing bubbles.

The honey may also become noticeably thinner.

Don’t panic!

Garlic contains water, and that moisture gets pulled into the honey. Under the right conditions, wild yeasts can become active and the mixture may begin fermenting.

This is why you’ll sometimes hear this called fermented garlic honey.

For the first week, open the jar daily to release the gases. Then switch to opening it every couple days to once a week for 3-4 weeks.

If pressure builds in a tightly sealed jar, carefully open it periodically to release the gas during active fermentation.

How Long Does Garlic Honey Take?

This isn’t an instant recipe.

You may notice changes within several days, but the flavor continues developing over the following weeks.

I like giving mine at least a few weeks before really digging into it.

The longer it sits, the more mellow the garlic tends to become and the more garlicky the honey tastes.

This is one of those projects where patience pays off.

Make it now.

Forget about it for a little while.

Then rediscover your jar later and feel ridiculously accomplished.

What Should Garlic Honey Look Like?

Your garlic honey probably won’t look exactly the same on day 30 as it did on day one.

That’s expected.

You may notice:

Bubbles forming.

Honey becoming thinner.

Garlic changing color somewhat.

Cloves becoming softer.

The garlic may even develop a blue or green tint due to natural reactions involving compounds in garlic. Strange looking? Definitely. Automatically spoiled? Not necessarily.

However, if you see visible fuzzy mold, obvious signs of spoilage, or a truly unpleasant rotten odor, don’t taste it to investigate. When in doubt, throw the batch away.

A Note About Food Safety

This is the part that’s worth taking seriously.

Garlic is a low-acid food, and putting low-acid foods into an oxygen-limited environment can create food-safety concerns if a preparation isn’t sufficiently acidic.

If you’re making fermented garlic honey for long-term storage, don’t rely on appearance, bubbles, smell, or internet folklore alone to prove it’s safe. For a more controlled ferment, many experienced fermenters monitor acidity with a reliable pH meter and aim to keep the mixture below pH 4.6.

For anyone who doesn’t want to manage a fermentation, a simpler approach is to make a small batch and keep the garlic-honey mixture refrigerated, understanding that refrigeration will slow fermentation.

Food safety is one area of homesteading where “people have always done it this way” isn’t enough information for me.

How to Use Garlic Honey

Okay, now for the fun part.

Once you have this beautiful jar of garlicky goodness, what do you actually DO with it?

My favorite thing about garlic honey is that it’s just as useful in cooking as it is sitting in the pantry looking like I’ve got my homestead life together.

You can drizzle the honey over roasted carrots or Brussels sprouts, mix it into salad dressing, brush it onto chicken before roasting, add it to marinades, mix a little into sauces, drizzle it over pizza, or pair it with cheese.

You can also eat one of the mellow garlic cloves or take a spoonful of the honey.

Try whisking a little garlic honey with olive oil, mustard, and vinegar for an incredibly easy homemade dressing.

Sweet + salty + garlicky?

Yes, please.

Can I Use My Own Honey?

Absolutely.

If you keep bees and have your own raw honey, this is such a satisfying way to use some of your harvest.

There’s something pretty special about combining garlic you’ve grown in the garden with honey harvested from your own hives.

It’s one of those little full-circle homesteading moments.

But you certainly don’t have to produce either ingredient yourself.

Good-quality fresh garlic and honey work just fine.

When Is the Best Time to Make Garlic Honey?

I love making garlic honey in late summer or early fall.

That’s when freshly harvested garlic may be curing or ready to use, and it’s also the time of year when I start thinking ahead to cozy fall cooking and winter.

Plus, it takes several weeks for the flavors to really start developing.

Make a jar in September or October and you’ll have something delicious waiting for you as the weather gets colder.

Homemade Garlic Honey Makes a Fun Homestead Project

One of my favorite things about homesteading isn’t necessarily doing everything from scratch.

It’s learning these tiny skills.

Growing garlic.

Keeping bees.

Preserving herbs.

Making broth.

Baking bread.

Fermenting vegetables.

Learning to use what we have instead of automatically buying another product.

Garlic honey fits perfectly into that lifestyle because it’s ridiculously simple.

Two ingredients.

One jar.

A little patience.

And you’ve turned two basic foods into something completely different.

If you’ve never made garlic honey, add this one to your fall homestead project list.

It’s easy enough for beginners, inexpensive to make, and actually useful in the kitchen.

And I love recipes like that.

Homesteading doesn’t always have to mean spending an entire Saturday canning 40 pounds of tomatoes while questioning every life decision that led you to this moment.

Sometimes it’s peeling a handful of garlic cloves, pouring honey over them, and setting a jar aside to let time do most of the work.

Those little skills add up.

And someday you realize your pantry is filled with things you’ve grown, harvested, fermented, preserved, and made yourself.

That’s my favorite kind of pantry.

Have you ever made garlic honey? I’d love to know how you use yours—especially if you have a favorite way to cook with it!

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