kitchen hacks: easy ways to use manuka honey in your cooking

Life hacks, sleep hacks, fitness hacks, productivity hacks… As life gets more complicated, seems like everyone’s looking for downright ingenious ways to streamline our daily to-do list a bit. Kitchen hacks are all about making things faster and easier when it comes to cooking. And that usually means getting the best out of your tools, ingredients and recipes.

With that in mind, we canvassed the True Honey Co. team and took a fresh look at the great tips our honey lovers have shared with us. Some of the gems we unearthed have made it onto this page as the below tips and tricks.

If you have a brilliant kitchen hack – particularly if it is Manuka Honey related please do let us know.

Despite the fact that none of the below will help you escape a locked shipping container using a lightbulb and a paper clip, we think McGuyver would be proud.

substitute teachings

You can swap out sugar for Manuka honey in bread, cakes, sweet biscuits and muffins, for a richer, more complex flavour. Because honey is sweeter than sugar, you may need to reduce the amount of honey in your recipe when you substitute. We recommend using 1/2 to 3/4 as much honey as white sugar.

When substituting honey in recipes with 1 cup or more of sugar, reduce the total volume of other liquids by 1/4 cup, for every cup of honey.

keep it cool

To avoid overbrowning, reduce the oven temperature by 10°C if your original recipe didn’t include honey as an ingredient.

slip n slide

Spray or brush a little cooking oil onto your measuring cup or spoon, and your honey will slide off easier.

crystal clear

Stored Manuka honey will sometimes crystallise. It hasn’t gone ‘off’ and there’s no need to toss it out. If your honey is packaged in a glass jar (like all of The True Honey Co. products), just remove the lid, and place the container in very hot water, stirring every 5 minutes, and making sure you don’t get any water in the honey. Any granules will slowly dissolve. Please don’t do this to a plastic jar, as it will warp the jar!

no fuss, no rust

Although Manuka honey is slightly acidic, stainless steel utensils (like your everyday cutlery) are absolutely fine to use with it, without the fear of corrosion. In fact, plenty of our own honey processing equipment is made of stainless steel – as it’s a super safe ‘food grade’ material to use. So dig in that teaspoon and scoop away!

softly, softly

At room temperature, high MGO rated Manuka honey is naturally quite thick. But sometimes you need yours runny. So here's how: half fill a bowl with hot water from the tap. Put the amount of honey you need in a smaller bowl (or mug) and place this gently in the bowl of water, stirring till the honey softens. Take care not to get water in your honey.

savour the bold

Think beyond the sweet when it comes to using Manuka honey in your dishes. It’s spectacular drizzled over salty cheese and served with freshly shelled walnuts. It’s wonderful when curing and smoking salmon or bacon. And a delicious addition to soften the acidity of tomato based sauces or in salad dressings of all sorts.

Got a real ‘honey’ of a kitchen hack you’d like to share? Drop us a line or head over to one of our social channels and say hi.