Candied Ginger
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Make your own homemade candied ginger, also known as crystallized ginger! The flavor is WAY better than store-bought, much fresher and more vibrant. It will bring your baked goods to life, plus it’s fabulous just to snack on!
Homemade Candied Ginger
Have you ever come across a recipe calling for candied ginger but passed because you didn’t have any, couldn’t find any in the store, or just didn’t want to bother trying to find it? Or have you thought about making it yourself but weren’t sure how or figured it would be too much work? Well this is for you!
If you like candied ginger just wait until you’ve tried homemade. The flavor is worlds better – so much fresher with a stronger, more vibrant flavor. And if you don’t care for candied ginger, you’ll be converted once you’ve tried it in a few recipes. It adds such a great to a variety of baked goods.
Because it’s so fresh, and you know the source, you can also reap the health benefits of ginger, something that’s been used medicinally for centuries. And while you obviously want to eat candied ginger in moderation because of its sugar content, if you’re going to indulge your sweet tooth this is a much better alternative than straight up candy, right?
Candied Ginger Recipe
Let’s get started!
Generally you want to use young, small ginger roots because they’re less woody/more tender. But medium-sized will work just fine as well. I recommend organic if possible.
Peel the ginger and slice it thinly and evenly. You can either do it by hand or use a mandolin. I highly recommend the Swissmar Borner Mandolin.
If you slice it paper thin the result will be crunchy crystallized ginger, but you also don’t want it too thick. 1/8 is thick is about right. You’ll need about 1 pound of sliced ginger.
Place the sliced ginger in a medium-sized pot and cover with water and just a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.
Reserve 1/2 cup of the ginger water and then drain the sliced ginger (you can also keep the ginger water for tea or a tonic).
Place the reserved ginger water and sugar in the pot.
Add the sliced ginger, bring it to a boil, reduce the heat to medium and simmer uncovered for about 35-40 minutes, stirring occasionally.
The mixture will become somewhat thickened as the sugar turns to a syrup. Simmer until a candy thermometer or instant read thermometer reads 225 degrees F. You don’t have to use a candy thermometer but it sure makes it a lot easier than guesswork.
Once the ginger mixture has reached 225 F drain the ginger immediately while hot. Use a colander over a bowl so you can collect the drained syrup. Don’t discard that syrup. This recipe produces a delicious by product: GINGER SIMPLE SYRUP! Add a teaspoon or two to your drinks for a refreshing ZING!
Lay the ginger slices out on a large cooling rack over a cookie sheet, separating the individual slices the best you can (this is the more tedious part of the process). Let the ginger sit for 2 hours so they’re sticky but not wet (you want the sugar to be able to adhere without dissolving).
Toss the pieces in a bowl of sugar to coat all sides. Lay the crystallized ginger back on the cooling rack to sit overnight to dry. Note: If you’re in a place with high humidity you can also dry these in a food dehydrator or in the oven on the very lowest temperature setting (you may need to keep the oven door cracked open).
Store the crystallized ginger in an airtight container in a dark, cool place. Because it’s cooked and sugar and then coated with sugar, it will keep for several months.
This makes roughly 2 cups of homemade candied ginger.
Feel free to double or triple the recipe as needed.
How to Use Crystallized Ginger
Candied ginger (aka crystallized ginger) is not only a yummy snack on its own, it’s a versatile ingredient that will liven up so many dishes. Here are just a few ways that you can use your homemade crystallized ginger:
- Added to banana bread, and Lemon Zucchini Bread
- Baked into cakes, cupcakes and muffins (see my Preserved Lemon Ginger Pound Cake)
- Added to Scottish Shortbread, ginger snaps, sugar cookies, Whole Grain Molasses Cookies, and Cornish Fairings
- Added to pear, apple, and other crisps (see my Pineapple Mango Coconut Crumble with Candied Ginger, Rhubarb Crisp and Peach Crisp)
- Baked into waffles and pancakes (see my Whole Wheat Sourdough Waffles)
- Stirred into Healthy Homemade Granola
- Stirred into Homemade Greek Yogurt
- Sprinkled over ice cream
Enjoy!
Be sure to also try my Homemade Candied Orange Peel (or lemon, grapefruit and lime)!
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Candied Ginger
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound fresh ginger root , preferably young/smaller roots, sliced about 1/8 inch thick (by hand or use a mandolin – it's much easier)
- pinch of salt
- 2 cups white granulated sugar
- extra sugar for coating
Instructions
- Place the sliced ginger in a medium pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Reserve 1/2 cup of the ginger water and then drain the ginger slices.
- Place the sliced ginger back in the pot with the reserved ginger water, sugar and pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer uncovered for 35-40 minutes or until the temperature on a candy thermometer reads 225 degrees F.Drain the ginger in a colander over a bowl to catch the syrup (see Note).
- Lay out the ginger slices on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet, separating the slices the best you can. Let cool for 2 hours (you want them sticky but not wet so that the sugar will adhere without dissolving).Toss the ginger slices in a bowl of sugar so they are coated all over. Place the ginger slices back on the cooling rack to sit overnight. Note: If you're in a very humid area you can dry the candied ginger in a food dehydrator or in the oven set to the lowest temperature (you may need to crack the oven door open.)
- Store in an airtight container in a dark, cool place. Will keep for several months. It can also be frozen for at least 6 months.This makes roughly 2 cups of candied ginger.
Notes
Nutrition
Originally published on The Daring Gourmet June 5, 2015
Hi, I’m Kimberly Killebrew and welcome to Daring Gourmet where you'll find delicious originals, revitalized classics, and simply downright good eats from around the world! Originally from Germany, later raised in England, world-traveled, and now living in the U.S., from my globally-influenced kitchen I invite you to tour the world through your taste buds!
Kimberly, I’m going to try to make your mincemeat for my sister-in-law for Christmas this year. She loves the stuff and hasn’t had any since my grandmother passed. So thanks for that recipe, as well as the candied citrus peel recipe; I’ll be using both. For Thanksgiving I plan to make a Pumpkin cake roll with a mascarpone and ginger cream filling. The filling calls for candied ginger, but it need to be fine and the last time I tried to chop the stuff, of course it was a mess because it’s so sticky. So my real question is this — how fine can you chop the ginger before it goes into the water? Ideally, I wouldn’t want a hunk in my dessert any larger than 1/8 inch and even smaller would be better. Thanks!
Hi Sandy, I’m happy you’ll be trying the mincemeat and the homemade candied citrus peel is a real game changer. For this candied ginger there really isn’t a minimum size per se, you just need to be able to strain it from the syrup (use a fine mesh sieve) and lay it out onto something that will enable the excess syrup to drip off (a fine mesh wire rack of sorts?). Tossing the small pieces in the sugar can easily be done in a ziplock bag.
Can I use honey instead of sugar?
Hi Lanette, I haven’t tried honey but my guess is that it would result in a very sticky mess with all the ginger pieces getting stuck together.
I thought the last dusting of sugar could be caster sugar rather than ordinary granulated sugar.
You can use either.
Strangely, I have been unable to find candied ginger in stores this Christmas, and I need some for my Christmas cake. I used the ginger root I had in the freezer and it worked brilliantly. I will be making my own from now on. Thank you for a terrific recipe.
Awesome, Lizzy, I’m happy you enjoyed them, thank you!
Turned out fantastic! The syrup is delicious as well. I think I’m going to buy a mandolin slicer for the next batch. I’m not very uniform in my slicing, but I do enjoy the chewy thick parts as well. The recipe was bang on. Good stuff! Although, I hit the temperature needed after only 20 minutes. But, directions were right. I think a candy thermometer is best for this one. Thank you for the wonderful recipe to satisfy my ginger cravings. :)
Awesome, Kris, thank you so much for the feedback!
My ginger is still very wet after drying over night. Help!
The temperature in the room as well as humidity level will play a role in how long it takes to dry. You can put the tray in the oven and let it dry at very low heat. If your oven doesn’t go very low you can crack the oven door open.
I probably don’t have an awesome thermometer, because mine never reached 225F (at one point it even went down from 220F to 215F) and eventually I realized the syrup was getting super thick, so I drained the ginger and the syrup became solid! Maybe a visual cue would help… When I bake some caramel to pour over a cake, I can tell it’s ready by the size of the bubbles, maybe a cue like that would help those of us with no helpful thermometer! :D
Anyways, I added some ginger water to my hard syrup and heated gently until I had a syrup again, so it’s all good. And after emptying the pan, I cooked some pears in it, delicious mix of flavours!
I just made this. I had.8 lg of pared ginger. Accidentally used only one cup of sugar (conflated two recipes) and the 1/2 cup water. it candied up just fine, but had VERY little syrup left.
seems like I needed more water to sugar ratio to get the syrup.Thank you for the recipe!
Hi Theresa, the sugar itself dissolves into liquid so having used only half of the sugar called for was the problem in not having enough syrup.