Discover the sweet science of infusing honey with herbs, spices, and creativity for the ultimate flavor boost.
Upgrade honey with DIY flavor infusions. Photo credit: Adobe Stock_tashka2000
Straight out of the hive, honey packs a powerful punch. As a sweetener, it’s 25 percent more potent than granulated sugar. It offers a range of floral notes derived from the blooms honeybees visit as they collect nectar. When busy bees predominantly tap clover or alfalfa, their honey is light in color and mild in taste. When they work in blueberry fields, their honey is well-rounded. Buckwheat honey is dark and full-bodied, while orange blossom honey has a fresh scent and light citrus taste.
Crafty cheese lovers can infuse honey with even more flavor using a host of dried herbs and spices that take the condiment to the next level on cheese boards. Pair hot chile honey with fontina, lavender honey with Ossau-Iraty, lemon honey with fresh chèvre, and truffle honey with pecorino.
There are two different ways to do this. One requires patience, and the other involves heat. Both methods entail a ratio of one part dried herbs or spices to four parts mild-tasting and light-colored honey. Dried aromatics are best for honey infusions because the flavor is more concentrated and diffuses more evenly, and they don’t affect the honey’s moisture content.
There are exceptions to the ratio if the spice in play is super potent (such as dried ghost chiles, which measure around 1,000,000 Scoville Heat Units) or if the herbs are super pricey (saffron can ring in at a whopping $200 per ounce). Making infused honey with either is more a matter of trial and error based on your palate and pocketbook.
The patient method of infusing honey requires filling a sterile mason jar one-fifth of the way with your choice of dried herbs or spices (cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, citrus peels, lavender, mild chile peppers, porcini mushrooms, rosemary, star anise, or thyme work well). Then pour in honey until there is an inch of headroom at the top of the jar. Tightly screw the cap on and place the jar on a sunny windowsill for three weeks, turning daily.
To speed up the process, pour the same ratio of honey to herbs and spices into the bowl of a double-boiler over a pot of simmering water. Using an instant-read thermometer, heat the mixture to 180 degrees and hold it at that temperature for 12 minutes. Remove the bowl from the heat and let the mixture sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Regardless of whether you’ve infused the honey slowly or quickly, the last step is to strain it through a fine-mesh sieve into sterile jars with tight-fitting caps. Infused honey can be stored at room temperature for six months.
Note: Don’t waste the strained herbs! Steep them in a pot with boiling water for a sweet, DIY herbal tea.
10 WAYS TO USE INFUSED HONEY
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Sweeten chocolate pots de crème with chipotle pepper–infused honey for a surprising kick.
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Combine rosemary-infused honey with lemon juice, water, and ice for a twisted lemonade.
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Do double-thyme with baked feta by coating it in thyme-infused honey before baking and garnish it with fresh thyme leaves after.
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Place roasted carrots on a schmear of labneh and drizzle with saffron-infused honey.
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Spread cinnamon-infused honey over toast.
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Add coffee bean–infused honey to buttercream frosting.
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Serve lavender-infused honey with lemon scones.
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Combine miso, soy sauce, and star anise–infused honey for a salmon marinade.
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Sweeten a yogurt-based smoothie with vanilla-infused honey.
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Use grapefruit peel–infused honey instead of simple syrup in a paloma.
BUYER BEWARE: HONEY IS HEAVY
Honey is sold by weight. Making infused honey is a volume proposition. Therefore, it’s important to understand that a 12-ounce jar of honey, when poured into a measuring cup, will only yield 1 cup. If you’re making ten ½-cup jars of lavender honey for bridal shower favors, for example, you’ll need to buy 60 ounces (by weight) of honey to fill all 10 jars.
Christine Burns Rudalevige
Christine Burns Rudalevige has been a working journalist for 30 years and has considered cheese her favorite food group for even longer. Ten years ago, when she attended culinary school, one of her goals was to write for culture.
