This 3-ingredient Sugar-Free Ginger Syrup may look intimidating if you've never made your own simple syrup, but it's very forgiving and comes together with just a bit of good timing. You can use it to sweeten your favorite hot or cold teas, smoothies, mocktails, coffee, and fruit salads.
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About this recipe
'Simplify' Your Beverages: whether making an iced basil tea in the summer or drinking hot herbal tea in the winter, this homemade ginger keto syrup will make it easy to sweeten drinks. From smoothies and mocktails to lattes and tisanes, now you can sip more sweetly without worrying about an increased histamine burden.
Histamine-Friendly Simple Syrup: unlike a traditional white sugar simple syrup, this allulose & monk fruit-based version is virtually calorie-free & not inflammatory, making it a low histamine sweetener. All in all the allulose & monk fruit blend I use can be replaced 1:1 for sugar, but like with any other food, allulose should be (re)introduced to your diet slowly, and then moderately, and then in full portion sizes.
Long Lasting: you can store this homemade sugar-free ginger syrup in the depths of your freezer for up to six months (or even a year, if stored particularly well), so you can make a larger batch and keep using it for a whole season. The same goes for my other syrups, like passion fruit syrup and lavender syrup.
Mom's Recipe: my mom has been making this fresh ginger syrup for as long as I can remember, always keeping a jar of it in the fridge and muching on the resulting candied ginger pieces for as long as it lasts. I like to add my pieces to homemade granola, as it goes great with any kind of seed or nut, like my candied macadamias.
Fresh Ginger Yield: as covered in my fresh ginger turmeric shots recipe, the yield by weight of fresh sliced ginger from fresh ginger root is about 70-75%. So by using 230g unpeeled root, you'll get about 160g of fresh ginger slices.
Ingredients
Fresh Ginger: make sure you use fresh or fresh-frozen ginger rather than a ginger puree to make this ginger simple syrup; you can find it in most supermarkets or certainly in your local organic market.
Allulose & Monk Fruit: other than water & ginger, the only ingredient in this ginger keto syrup is my favorite allulose & monk fruit sweetener blend, which to me has no aftertaste. However a very small portion of the population are super tasters, and to them allulose &/or monk fruit may taste somewhat bitter. Make sure you're not one of those people before you invest in a very large bag for mocktail-making.
How to make fresh ginger syrup: step-by-step instructions
Step 1. Peel your ~8oz/230g of ginger root, then slice it into pieces ⅛" to ¼" thick (3-5mm thick), and add it to your pot.
Step 2. Pour in the water and sweetener, stir it together, then heat the mixture until just simmering.
Step 3. Lower the heat a bit until just at or below a simmer, with some water still steaming off, stirring rarely. Let it sit just below a simmer for about 30 minutes, both to infuse the syrup and lightly candy the ginger.
Step 4. Then take it off the heat and let it sit on a cool burner for about 10 minutes before straining the mixture and preserving your keto ginger syrup in a closed container in the fridge for up to 10 days. You now also have some lightly candied ginger, which you can let dry out more on some parchment, then toss in allulose or sugar before storing it in an airtight jar (eat or freeze it within 1 week).
Recipe notes & tips
How Long to Peel?: It took me about 30 minutes to peel this fresh ginger with a spoon and a sharp knife for the more fibrous part. The older your ginger root, the more fibrous it becomes and the thicker the skin. So for easier-to-peel ginger, buy the freshest stuff possible, or even grow it in your backyard if you live in the right area.
For Spicy Ginger Syrup: to get that extra twang and make the most of your fresh ginger, you can also pour the syrup into a blender once it's cooled and blend everything together into a puree. This works particularly well with very fresh ginger, so if your ginger is older and more fibrous, you may still want to strain out the stringiest bits. For a more light ginger syrup, use as little as half of the called-for ginger, or increase the amount of water to 1 ½ cups.
Swapping Sweeteners: you can use this method and this ratio with a number of other granulated sweeteners to make ginger simple syrup, but it won't work with powdered sugar or stevia due to the consistency. Some other sweeteners you could try it with are liquid stevia, brown sugar, coconut sugar, date sugar, panela, or jaggery.
If using regular cane sugar or brown sugar in place of the allulose, you'll need an extra five or so minutes for the mixture to reach a high enough temperature to caramelize, and if you overcook it, you'll be scraping ginger syrup from your pot for quite awhile.
Corn Allergies: if you have any issues with corn, make sure to buy allulose from a company which specifically doesn't source their allulose from corn, as much allulose is manufactured from corn. However it's also found in small amounts in figs, raisins, wheat, maple syrup and molasses.
What to do with simple syrup
- use it to sweeten mocktails (or even homemade cocktails!)
- add it to large batches of low histamine teas
- sweeten your morning non-caffeinated blue flower latte
- use is as a binder for homemade granola
- make my Moscow mule mocktail
- blend it into a vanilla flax pudding
- mix it into your favorite smoothie
Keto Ginger Syrup FAQ
It takes about 20 minutes to make a flavored simple syrup due to the infusion time, though larger batches will take longer since it will need more time to reach boiling temps.
Yes, in order to properly dissolve all of the sugar crystals, it's important to heat the water enough that even the largest sugar crystals melt and the two substances liquefy.
Yes! While a typical simple syrup is made with refined white sugar, for a deeper more caramelized flavor, you can substitute the same amount of brown sugar (though it will no longer be sugar-free).
Yes, you can flavor a simple syrup by infusing it with fresh or dried botanicals of any kind (though how much to use will vary), though you could also add a food-grade essential oil to flavor it.
Homemade Ginger Syrup (Sugar-Free) Recipe Card
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📖 Recipe
Easy Ginger Simple Syrup (Fresh Ginger Syrup)
Ingredients
- 1 Cup or 230g fresh ginger root peeled & thinly sliced (⅛"-¼" thick or 3-5mm thick)
- 1 Cup sugar or allulose monk fruit blend
- 1 Cup water
Instructions
- Peel your ginger root, then slice it into pieces ⅛" to ¼" thick (3-5mm thick), and add it to your pot.
- Pour in the water and sweetener, stir it together, then heat the mixture until just simmering.
- Lower the heat a bit until just at or below a simmer, with some water still steaming off, stirring rarely. Let it sit just below a simmer for about 30 minutes, both to infuse the syrup and lightly candy the ginger.
- Then take it off the heat and let it sit on a cool burner for about 10 minutes before straining the mixture and preserving your keto ginger syrup in a closed container in the fridge for up to 10 days. You now also have some lightly candied ginger, which you can let dry out more on some parchment, then toss in allulose or sugar before storing it in an airtight jar (eat or freeze it within 1 week).
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