4 Ways To Preserve Ginger
Ginger is one of the healthiest spices on the planet. We have found 4 ways to preserve ginger to use in both cooking and and homeopathy. Its unique flavor and scent adds much to savory dishes or even teas. Ginger Ale has long been lauded as a way to settle a sick stomach, which is sometimes the only thing people know about ginger.
Purchasing ginger in bulk is definitely the most affordable. We purchased three pounds and managed to preserve all of it in one form or another. To begin with you can easily freeze your ginger, removing it to grate or slice it as needed. When freezing, you don’t even need to peel it. Just make sure to use a freezer bag or container, and make sure to properly label and date it.
Next, I dehydrated quite a large amount of the ginger. You do need to peel the ginger and slice it fairly thin. Then lay it out on your dehydrator sheets, turning it on low for around 8-10 hours until it is brittle. You can also dehydrate it in the oven baking it at 150 degrees for approximately 2 hours. You do have to watch it carefully though to make sure it doesn’t burn. There are two ways to peel ginger, both can be challenging. Honestly, scraping it with the spoon edge probably has the least amount of waste. If you prefer though, you can peel it with a small knife.
Once you have your ginger dehydrated, you can do a couple of things with it. You can either store it in a jar in the long pieces, or grind it into your very own ginger powder using a mortar and pestle. The smell of fresh ground ginger can’t be beat.
Finally, perhaps my favorite, is ginger syrup. Ginger syrup is a great way to use up fresh ginger. I used 1 cup of sliced fresh ginger, 1 cup of water, and 1 cup sugar. I simply boil the water, and add in the sugar, stirring till it dissolves. Then, add your fresh ginger, and bring it back to a boil. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. After this, remove it from the heat completely, cover it, and allow it to cool for up to an hour. Then I bottle in and place it in the refrigerator. I use about 2 tablespoons of the syrup, a squeeze of lemon or lime, and a glass of club soda to make my own ginger ale, but you can also add it to a cup of hot water for a ginger tea, make a cough syrup from it by adding honey, and so much more. Remember, you have to play with it to discover how much syrup you prefer. Too much syrup will make it spicy hot.
One final option for your fresh ginger rhizomes is to actually plant them. If you purchased organic you can easily plant them and start growing your very own ginger plant. You may want to soak the rhizomes for an hour or so prior to planting, since they will be dried. I would then plant it in a pot in good garden soil, with just a thin layer of dirt on top. Keep it moist, and in a couple weeks, you should see green shoots or leaves starting, and you will know that it is ready to go in the ground!
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