Homemade Cough Drops with Honey, Lemon and Ginger
Homemade cough drops made with all-natural healing ingredients like honey, ginger, lemon and cinnamon - with an easy flexible recipe! These sweet, warming cough drops can help soothe sore throats, calm coughs, and more.
Equipment
- medium sauce pan
- candy molds (optional) or simply add small spoonfuls onto parchment paper
- Spatula
- candy thermometer (optional but recommended)
- waxed paper for wrapping
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup honey (or substitute with maple syrup to make them vegan)
- 3 Tbsp lemon juice (recommended), apple cider vinegar, orange juice, or other acidic liquid.
- 1-1.5 tsp fresh grated ginger (or 1/2 tsp ground ginger powder)
- 1/4-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (sliding scale to taste)
- Optional but recommended: powdered sugar, vitamin C powder, arrowroot powder, cornstarch, or ground cinnamon to coat the cough drops at the end and reduce sticking in storage.
Instructions
- Get all of your supplies ready (e.g. candy molds or parchment-lined plate or baking sheet) before starting; you’ll need to work quickly to pour the cough drop mixture once it’s cooked!
- In a medium saucepan, whisk the lemon juice and honey together until they’re thoroughly combined, and then stir in the ginger and cinnamon.
- Heat the pot over medium-high heat, stirring with spatula. Once it foams up, turn off the heat and stir the foam back into the mixture.
- Turn the heat on to medium-high again. Cook and stir almost continuously with a spatula until it reaches the “hard crack” point at 300°F. Be careful not to overcook and burn it! (Time can vary but ours took around 9-10 minutes once returning to heat.)
- If you don’t have a candy thermometer, use these visual cues to recognize the hard crack stage: when the mixture can’t help but bubble up (can’t be stirred down), when it coats the back of a spoon, or if it forms into a ball when you drop a small spoonful into a cup of ice water. It will become more gelatinous, thick, shiny, and darker in color. (You can also stop cooking before it reaches 300°F, though the finished homemade cough drops will be more soft and taffy-like.)
- Wait only a minute to to let it cool off the heat before carefully spooning the cough drop mixture into candy molds or small dollops onto parchment paper. Otherwise, it will quickly begin to stiffen in the pan and become increasingly sticky and difficult to work with!
- Once they’re fully cooled and hardened, you may want to gently toss and coat your cough drops in an edible powder of choice (powdered sugar, arrowroot powder, cinnamon, cornstarch, etc) to help prevent them from being so sticky in storage.
- Finally, individually wrap each homemade cough drop in little twists of waxed paper, taffy style.
- Store homemade cough drops in the pantry or refrigerator, where they'll last for several months or longer. For the best results, store them in an air tight container with a lid in a cool, dark, dry location. Refrigeration isn't required but will extend the shelf life and prevent them from getting gooey.
- When it’s time to enjoy them – suck, don’t chew! These honey cough drops can be quite hard and sticky on your teeth.