Do you avoid honey because you don’t know how or when to use it? Raw & unfiltered honey can be a delicious, sweet treat to appease that sweet craving without the guilt. Honey deserves more credit than use as a topping on biscuits or drizzled in tea. From baking afternoon snacks to packing lunchboxes, honey goes way beyond these quintessential uses.
Need some help adding the goodness of honey to your day? Check out these delicious ways to use honey, honey pairing ideas, how to use it as a replacement for processed sweeteners, and tips for how to use when you’re baking.
Honey’s Versatility
Honey can be enjoyed with some of your current staples like ice cream, oatmeal, in coffee, or even glazed on chicken or fish! If you’re into entertaining, try adding raw & unfiltered honey to your meat and cheese board for the fan-favorite balance of sweet and savory!
If you’re feeling super adventurous, honey can also be used to create homemade beauty products as a natural moisturizer!
Perfect Pairings
If you’re looking for something more basic to ease into the transition to choosing real honey, we have a few all-time favorite honey pairings we cycle through for breakfast, lunch and snack routines.
Try honey “nachos” by drizzling on top of fruits like apple, bananas, peach or pear slices. Add your favorite nuts or granola to make it an all-natural dessert. To sneak those nutrients into lunches, try adding a small container of honey in the lunchbox for dipping apple slices in.
Peanut butter and honey is a classic pair for a good reason! Try PB & Honey toast or sandwich with some apple slices if you want an extra crunch. Mix honey and peanut butter together as a dip for fruit or pretzels on the go!
Adding honey to plain Greek yogurt is a great way to counter the bold flavor without adding anything artificial or processed. Create a quick parfait bar for after work or school with all the family-favorites like berries, nuts, and of course a big bottle of raw & unfiltered honey!
Ditching Processed Sugar
About 1 in 10 Americans consume 25% or more of their daily calories from processed sugar, which means that Americans are consuming these calories with no added nutritional value. Cutting down on processed sugar doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your sweet cravings – simply use raw & unfiltered honey instead!
Since honey contains nutrients and enzymes, it’s not “empty calories” like processed sugar or high fructose corn syrup. Plus, raw honey is processed differently by our bodies in a way that eliminates the dreaded “sugar crash”. Try swapping processed for raw honey in your routine cup of coffee, tea or oatmeal. You can also replace your kids’ sugary treats with some honey snacks like quick, homemade fruit snacks or honey pretzel bites in their lunchboxes to sweeten their day without the processed sugar.
Baking & Cooking with Honey
Refined sugar will become a thing of the past once you discover the natural goodness of honey-baked treats. The added bonus is the ability to use less honey than you would refined sugar because the sweetness of raw honey is more concentrated!
Honey conversion chart
¼ cup of refined sugar = 3 tbsp. honey
½ cup of refined sugar = ⅓ cup of honey: Decrease potential liquids by 1 tbsp. and add ¼ tsp. baking soda
1 cup of refined sugar = ¾ cup of honey: Decrease potential liquids by ⅛ cup and add ½ tsp baking soda
2 cups of refined sugar = 1 ⅜ cup of honey: Add ¼ cup of potential liquids and add tsp. baking soda
Quick tips: When cooking or baking with recipes you already love, reduce heat by 25 degrees Fahrenheit and use foil to prevent over browning. Last, and most important, use these conversions to ditch the processed and choose real!
Check out our Honey Conversions and Tricks page for additional conversion info: https://www.naturenates.com/tips-and-tricks/
In order to reap all the benefits of natural honey, you want to make sure you’re getting the real deal. To ensure your honey is truly natural and real, check your labels. They can be very sneaky! Look for honey that is labeled “raw and unfiltered,” like Nature Nate’s Orange labeled-honey. Raw and unfiltered means that your honey hasn’t been pasteurized, a process of heating honey at high temperatures, or filtered, which removes goodies in honey like natural pollen.
