Crystallized ginger is prepared by drying the ginger and then it has a sugar coating on top. You can make the crystallized ginger at home all by yourself or you can even buy it from a local grocery store.

Crystallized ginger uses and crystallized ginger benefits
Well it can be used to fight the morning sickness or it can be used to prepare the ginger cookies and even it can be used for general eating when you need to fight the sore throat or the sea sickness while traveling.

If you mix crystallized ginger with honey and black pepper then you in fact get some help in controlling the asthma attacks. As with fresh ginger crystallized ginger can be used to get some help when you have arthritis pain.

crystallized ginger

Another easy way is to drop them into your tea and enjoy the ginger tea.

A lot of people ask the question whether the candied ginger is a good substitute for the ginger root and the answer is a resounding yes. In general in most cases you will be able to use the crystallized ginger instead of the fresh ginger. The best part as I said earlier is that it will help you store the ginger for about six months easily.

As far as crystallized ginger recipes go you can practically use these anywhere instead of the raisins as that will help avoid raisins and get benefits of Ginger. In fact you can use them in muffins very easily. Enjoy your ginger and get benefited

Here are the directions to having the homemade pickled ginger

Slice the fresh ginger after removing the peel . The amount of ginger can vary but I will suggest that take two good 2 inch pieces of ginger.

Cut and slice them into thing vertical pieces resembling what you have seen generally in the Sushi bars.

Now take ½ teaspoon of salt and sprinkle it on the pieces of ginger cut and put in a saucepan.

Let it sit for about and hour and then dry the pieces with a paper towel and also drain off any water that is there because of the action of salt on water.

Now use some vinegar say about 8 oz. and add about ¼ up of sugar to it. Boil this mixture. Now you can have more sugar based on the taste you need. I find ¼ cup enough but I like the ginger a bit bitter so it works for me.

Now add the slices to this mixture and allow then mixture with the pieces to cool off.

Gradually you will see that color of the pickle has gone pink and that is generally a good sign that ginger has pickled. Note that you cannot use crystallized ginger for making pickled ginger

Now if you need something different from the ginger candy then there are the ginger lollipops which help in monrning sickness. Another way to get ride of morning sickness is to eat ginger cookies or food cooked with fresh ginger.

Now you can make the candied ginger on your own though it may be a tough game as you need to perfect the art.

I am not going to tell you here as to how to make the candied ginger since this recipe is easily available online however I can tell you that you are better of buying the ginger candy from the stores. No if you want top really make the ginger candy on your own then here are my tips.

In my next post I am going to detail all about crystallized ginger and I think that is a better way to have ginger than the candied ginger as ginger candy means a lot of sugar and that can easily be avoided in the crsytallied ginger recipe.

Candied ginger

Now if you are going to still make the ginger candy then here are my tips.

Always cut the ginger slices very evenly and they should of decent thickness else they may not work well

Heat the ginger till it is softened to the core when you are heating it in water. This will make sure that when you cool it off it dries till the core.

Ginger tea along with a dash of lemon juice and honey provides a wonderful concotion which can be used as alternative healthy drink instead of your regular drink. Online or otherwise you can always get the organic ginger tea.

If you want to have your homemade ginger tea then here are the steps

For 2 cups of tea you can have a ginger root piece which is about 2 – 21/2 inches long.

Now peel that slice of ginger and then grate the piece. Alternatively you can even cut thin slices of ginger and not grate the ginger.

Put the water for boiling and add the grated ginger or the slices of ginger into the water.

Once boiled pour the water into your tea cup. You can filter the pieces of ginger or you can have them in your tea cup. You will have to allow them to settle for a while.

Ginger tea

Add honey and lime juice to the cup and of course the normal tea bag. If you want that else you can only have that with ginger and honey.

Tip – To get decent amount of extract from ginger boil the water with ginger root for good 10 -20 minutes.

You have these ginger tea cups for three – four times a day. Since ginger is very healthy and is an expectorant as well as thermogenic it is good as for curing all stomach disorders and common cold as well as cough.

There are other recipes that involved crystallized ginger which I will be detailing in the later posts. You can also use the candied ginger for just chewing and get some relief from sore throat as it acts as a very good expectorant.

Ginger is also used as a spice for because it has some really pungent smell and it is known for removing some bad odors from food.

Ginger root

Now onto the health benefits of ginger. Well the most commonly known health benefits of ginger are the in the cases of pregnancy. Nausea caused during pregnancy can be cured by ginger root. This is also known as morning sickness and ginger works really well for morning sickness.

Stomach indigestion can be easily cured by ginger root. Any heartburn caused due to indigestion or otherwise can be cured by having ginger tea.

Arthritis patients use ginger oil for massage as it has the basic anti inflammatory traits.

Now if you buy ginger then you can buy fresh ginger from any grocery store. However it is a major issue when you will to have to use as you have to peel the thin brown skin and then grate it for effective use. If you need to store it then it is better to peel it and then go for your cling wrap and put it in your freezer.

Generally the grated form of ginger is the best as then you can very easily get the juice from the grated ginger and use it. Ginger juice and honey mixed in work very well for a sore throat.

If you need more eating style ginger for effective nausea relief then go for the crystallized ginger or the ginger chews.

Ginger extracts are available in the form of capsules or health supplements.

Update : Mar 2010: For all those who need to understand better how to make good food then read this cooking guide and I am sure it will help you a lot.