Home Made cough drops/lozenges or cough syrup- Honey Free
Weather is changing and nobody likes to be sick. Everyone is coughing, sniffling, and sneezing. Having a sore throat, cold, or flu can make even the happiest person little uncomfortable. There are a ton of products that we can buy to soothe a cough, but being allergic to honey, I can’t try any herbal products such as cough drops and syrups . Thought of making my own cough drops and syrup:
Ingredients:
- Fresh or dried ginger- 1 tea spoon
- Fresh pepper mint-10 leaves
- Mulethi or liquorice
- 2 cups water
- Cloves 2-3 pounded
- Lemon-1
- Grated Nutmeg- Pinch
- Cinnamon powder -Pinch
- Black pepper-10-12 crushed
- Sugar- 1 table spoon (You can use more if you want hard candies)
- Jaggery-1/2 cup
- Turmeric-Pinch
- Cornstarch, for coating so the candies don’t stick together
Method:
- First, prepare your herbal tea, boil everything together with the ingredients list mentioned above. Note : Don’t add jaggery, sugar and cornstarch while boiling. We will save this for later. (You don’t have to be accurate, at all – just try to end up with more water than herb so that it can simmer efficiently.)
- Heat the water/herb combo to a simmer then cover the pot with a lid. Let this boil over lowest heat for about 15 to 20 minutes.
- Strain our the herbal tea. Measure out around 1/2 cup to quarter cup.
- Take the same tea/water in pan. Add sugar and jaggery and keep stirring and boiling until your reach a sticky consistency. For me it took 20 minutes for quarter cup of mixture.
- Prepare a flat tray with parchment paper, or greasing the tray very well.
- Let the mixture cool slightly. Drop onto baking sheet into rounds. Allow to cool completely. Dust with the cornstarch. Peel out the lozenges after drying out. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place away from any moisture. (Moisture will cause them to stick together.) Alternatively, they can be dusted and wrapped individually in small pieces of wax paper.
Mine came out little sticky as I was little hesitant in adding sugar; jaggery doesn’t give it hard texture. It really soothing to lick. Alternatively you can take it as a cough syrup too by varying the consistency.
Yes, I am feeling lot better with this magic pill!