Honey Lemon Homemade Cough Drops - DIY Throat Lozenges

Made with only four ingredients, these honey lemon homemade cough drops are a natural sore throat remedy. Honey-based and made with immune-boosting ingredients, these DIY throat lozenges are both healing and soothing.

Basically, they're an easy way to relieve a sore throat (though this elderberry homemade cough syrup is a helpful option too!).

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Cold season is no one's favorite. And being that I live in Canada, cold season pretty much encompasses half the year 😛

So it`s a bit of a no-brainer that as a Certified Nutrition Coach I have protocols and tricks in place to help us survive.

And natural options like these honey lemon ginger cough drops are a key element!

Honey helps coat your throat to prevent the scratchy cough feeling and lemon helps prevent and eliminate bacteria and infection as well as keep the ph of your stomach in a healthy range.

Ingredients You'll Need

The honey lemon combination has been used for what seems like eons to soothe sore throats! Probably because it just works so damn well.

Raw honey: even though you'll be heating this honey I think it's always best to use raw, unpasteurized honey, At the very least, just make sure to use a pure honey so that you're not adding in any extra additives.

The reason I use local honey in the DIY cough drops is that I believe it helps adjust your immune system towards any pollen in the air thus reducing allergies.

Coconut oil: I typically opt for cold-pressed, extra virgin coconut oil because it will have the most healing properties. However, know that the more unprocessed your oil is the more slight coconut flavor it will have.

Fresh lemon juice: ideally you want lemon juice squeezed right from the lemon for these cough drops! The fresher it is the more potent it will be.

Ginger: if you don't have fresh ginger on hand, dried will work. But like most things, know you're losing some of the benefits from it.

When I don't have these homemade cough drops on hand I usually just steep all of these ingredients into boiling water and sip on it throughout the day- seriously, they work well!

How To Make Natural Homemade Cough Drops

1. Combine all ingredients in a small pot.
2. Heat the pot slightly over medium heat and melt the ingredients together.
3. The honey mixture will start to bubble, remove from heat and whisk until bubbles/foam recedes slightly. Replace on heat.
4. Do this for 2.5-3 minutes, whisking every 15 seconds or so. You want the mixture to get HOT but not to outright burn.
5. After three minutes-ish, pour the mixture into silicone molds but do not fill them all the way. 
6. Let cool on the counter for twenty minutes then place in the freezer to set.

Important Notes On The DIY Cough Drops

The trick to making homemade cough drops is that you have to keep the honey bubbling (seems like burning) on the stove. You also have to keep removing briefly, stirring, and redoing this (read the directions).

It's the bubbling that burns off the goopy aspect and makes the honey into something that resembles hard candy.

So follow the directions.

Note that many recipes will get you t use a candy thermometer when making DIY lozenges. However, I prefer to go by the color of the honey instead. Mainly because a candy thermometer is just one more step.

Instead, keep an eye on the color: you want it to turn a darker shade.

You can also check out DIY Elderberry cough drops in which I provide a step-by-step video of how to boil the honey without burning it.

Crucial Products

You'll need a set of silicone molds for these natural homemade cough drops.

You can use any silicone molds you like but my advice is to keep the actual cough drops super thin.

Thus, you want medium-sized candy molds but you don't want to fill them the entire way.

These homemade cough drops have a hard candy/taffy-like consistency in your mouth (which means that you shouldn't chew them.. especially with dentures. Seriously, taffy-like).

Because of this consistency, having them super thick isn't fun, keep them ultra-thin. Like disks.

These homemade honey lemon cough drops taste amazing and sucking on them is moderately addictive.

Homemade Cough Drops & Kids

Because they are taffy-like once they honey firms up and melts in your mouth, my advice would be to not give them to kids. I worry with kids, especially very little ones, that they would chew them and swallow and choke.

So these are adult-only DIY cough drops I'd say (though here's a great cough syrup recipe for kiddos if you need one!)

Other Cold & Flu Remedies I Use

If you want to do everything in your power to survive cold and flu season, here are some staples you need!

• Gut-Boosting Homemade Gummy Bears
• Fire cider tonic (my full fire cider recipe)
• Homemade elderberry cough syrup
• good old-fashioned, super healthy eating
• Homemade honey and garlic elixir for coughs and colds
• this magic honey garlic elixir to help kick a cold fast!
• Gut healing smoothie

These honey lemon cough drops will rival any halls to knock a sore throat. But if you want to keep your immune system high year-round, bone broth should be in your diet.

I also use a lot of bone broth to both fight colds and prevent them! It's actually one of my most recommended foods for toddlers  because it's so healing.

However, making homemade broth takes TIME (a lot of it!) which I'm slightly limited on.

So while I do strive to make my own I also make use of two-time savers: I use bone broth powder from perfect supplements (use code mamabear10) normally whisked into something.

Learn more about powdered bone broth as well as the difference between bone broth and collagen powder.