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.
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Life isn't always easy. And when we're fighting a sore throat, fatigue, or just feeling under the weather, it's even worse. When this happens, it's important to carve out time for ourselves and focus on our health.
My solution is to make this immunity-boosting tea sweetened with a natural sweetener, raw honey.
🤸♀️ What is Ginger Lemon Honey Tea Good For?
Each ingredient of this healthy tea packs nutritional benefits to boost our immunity when we most need it. So, it's important that each ingredient is as fresh as possible to maximize those benefits.
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.
- It has been long known for its antibacterial properties and may also be effective as part of oral rehydration therapy
Lemon
- Lemons boost the immune system with both its abundant vitamin C and potassium.
❤️ Why you'll love this recipe
- You only need 3 ingredients to make this tea.
- Spicy ginger is the perfect foil for the lemon and honey.
- This is a flexible recipe so feel free to adjust the amounts of the 3 ingredients to suit your own tastes.
- It's a powerful energy and immunity booster. Go check out my 5 Easy Ways to Boost Energy post with if your energy flags during the day, and you want more ideas!
🧅 Ingredient Notes
To maximize the health benefits of this tea use natural ingredients in their raw form. Here are some notes for each ingredient.
🌱 Fresh Ginger
- Use raw ginger that's as fresh as possible for the best nutritional punch. This is not the time to use ginger paste that comes in a tube or jar.
🍋 Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice
- Fresh lemon has a brighter taste, has zero preservatives, and has increased health benefits over bottled lemon juice. Bottled juice is more convenient, but it only takes a few minutes with a citrus juicer to get the freshly squeezed stuff.
🍯 Raw Unfiltered Honey
- Raw honey comes straight from the hive, and has more nutrients than processed honey.
- Honey not labeled as raw is generally pasteurized to slow down its natural crystallization and to remove particles. But this process may also destroy antioxidants and may contain additives or preservatives.
💡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
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).
🛌 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 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.
- Check out this article on Healthline for more bedtime benefits.
Soothing Honey Lemon Ginger Tea for Increased Immunity
Equipment
- citrus juicer (if making more than 1 mug of tea)
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons coarsely grated unpeeled raw ginger root or more, for extra spiciness
- 1 teaspoon raw unfiltered honey or to taste
Instructions
- Heat 1 cup of water in the microwave or on the stovetop until the water begins to boil. Pour the hot water into a coffee mug.
- Coarsely grate the unpeeled ginger root, place in a tea infuser and drop into the hot water. You can also add the ginger gratings straight into your mug.
- Squeeze the lemon juice into the hot water. Steep until cool enough to drink, about 3-5 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!