Candied Ginger

The good wife has been busy canning peaches from our tree these past few weeks.  It got to the point that she was looking for different recipes to use.  We had plenty of canned peaches, peach jelly, peach preserves, and peach salsa so the next recipe she found to try was Ginger Peach Jam.  She found this recipe online at www.peachtruck.com.



One of the ingredients for this recipe was candied ginger.  That is not something that we have on hand.  I don't even think we've ever bought any before.  We added the candied ginger to our grocery list and headed out.  Once we found it we suffered a major case of sticker shock.  Needless to say, I jumped on Google to see how much trouble it would be to make our own.  It turns out it is not difficult and you can make it far cheaper and end up with multiple products.


First you need to get some fresh ginger.  Try to avoid the larger ones as they can be a bit stringy.  Sometimes you can find something called spring ginger in Asian markets that has a milder flavor if you don't want your candied ginger to have a strong flavor.  I used regular ginger. 


To prepare the ginger, peel it and cut into 1/8th inch thick slices.  A mandolin makes this quick and easy.


Get a pot of simple syrup boiling on the stove.  I used 2 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar.  The next time I'll probably up it to 3 cups each. 


Once the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is back to a boil add the sliced ginger.  Stir to get the ginger evenly distributed and bring back to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes or until tender.  My ginger had just a slight bit of resistance left when poked with a fork.


Pour the mixture into a strainer over a large bowl.  You'll want to save the syrup as it in now strongly ginger flavored.  I ended up with about 10 ounces of ginger syrup.  A little bit mixed with some club soda and you have a tasty drink similar to ginger ale.  You can vary the amount of syrup to make the ginger flavor as strong as you like it to be.

Ginger syrup

Spread the drained ginger slices on a drying rack in a single layer.  Let them dry until they are just slightly tacky.  If they are too wet the sugar will just melt into them.  Drying can take 5 hours or more depending on humidity.  I put mine in front of a fan and they were acceptably dry in about 2 hours.

Sliced ginger boiled and dried

Put some sugar in a bowl and add the ginger.  Toss to completely coat the ginger and return to the drying rack to complete the drying process.  Once the sugar coated ginger is dry it is ready to eat as it is or use it in a recipe.  Any not used immediately can be stored in an air tight container.  Save the leftover sugar for flavoring tea or using in a recipe as it will have a slight ginger flavor.  I sugar coated the ginger in batches so there would be less sticking together and I could use less sugar in the bowl.

Candied Ginger ready to use

The candied ginger and the ginger syrup both make great additions for recipes and for eating on their own.  Ginger is reputed to be a home remedy for nausea so that is an extra reason to keep some around.  I don't know if it'll help or not but the flavor is so good you'll feel better regardless.

The final product

I think I had about 30 minutes of active time in this project.  The rest of the time is spent doing other things while the ginger is either boiling or drying.  In the end, as is usually the case, the fresh made is a far superior product than what you can get at the store.


Give this a try.  You'll have a tasty snack at least.  I'm not sure how long this will last but I'm not sure it'll be around long enough to go bad.  If you do make it, let me know how it turned out.


Uncle T