How to Eat Ginger
You’ve never had ginger until you’ve had it fresh from the farm. That’s why we at FruitStand can’t wait to send you exceptional quality ginger directly from our farm partners to your door.
Ginger is a tasty rhizome that is used as a spice for flavor rather than eating whole. It can be boiled and steeped to flavor soups, cream and sauces. Grate it into flavorful syrups, candies and marinades. The citrusy heat can also be used to flavor proteins from pork and beef to delicate sushi and seafood dishes.
Fresh ginger has a powerfully pungent flavor. It tastes earthy with peppery heat, and citrusy in its sharpness. When added as a spice, ginger imparts a warm, spicy flavor that has slightly acidic sweetness. Botanically known as Zingiber officinale, and sometimes called ginger root, ginger is in fact a rhizome and not a root at all. It comes in unique, knobby clusters that are about six inches long on average.
How to prepare your ginger will depend on the recipe you’re using. Here are the most common ways to prepare ginger for just about any recipe.
Ginger root comes in knobby, fragrant chunks and is easy to slice.
- To prepare ginger to be used in recipes, first the papery skin should be peeled away. This can be done by scratching it away with the side of a spoon, using a vegetable peeler or paring knife.
- Grate ginger using a microplane or box grater
- Use a chef knife to slice and dice the spice into your favorite recipes.
How to Cook Ginger
Ginger’s spicy heat mellows and the flavor becomes more complex with heat. Here are some of the most popular ways to cook with ginger:
- Raw: Ginger is edible when raw, and is usually eaten in small quantities along with other foods. Sprinkle ginger into salads, icy desserts and more.
- Confection: Whether preserved in sugar or cooked into candies and jams, ginger is excellent in sweet and sour recipes for cakes, pastries and confections.
- Soups and Sauces: A small amount of ginger imparts pungent, citrusy flavor to creams and liquids.
Hot or cold, hard or soft, ginger adds distinctive flavor to beverages for people of all ages. Ginger is very popular in fresh juice drinks, teas, enhanced water beverages, smoothies and cocktails. Here are some easy ways use ginger in your drinks:
- Juicing: Remove the skin from a hunk of ginger then, feed the pulp into your juicer for a refreshing heat and sweet, lemony taste. Ginger plays well with just about any fruit or vegetable you can think of. We love it with apples, pears, pineapple, cara cara oranges, lemons, yuzu, kale, spinach, garlic and cucumber.
- Smoothies: To prepare your ginger for smoothies, either slice or grate it before freezing it on a prepared cookie sheet. Once frozen, store in an airtight container in the freezer for up to six months.
- Water: Grate some ginger into your water bottle or float a few slices in hot water for a quick and soothing ginger tea.
- Cocktails: Ginger beer doesn’t have to get all the glory. Use grated, juiced or candied ginger in your favorite cocktails.
- Soda: Ginger ale and ginger beer get their name from this fresh spice that give these iconic drinks their soughtafter flavor.
The key to storing ginger for as long as possible is to keep it from being exposed to lots of light and moisture. Store fresh ginger can be left on the countertop in a paper bag for up to three weeks, or seal whole, uncut ginger in an airtight container in the refrigerator to keep it fresh for even longer. This warm spice happens to freeze beautifully, and for best results, keep it sealed to best preserve the flavor. Other popular methods of storing ginger include pickling and fermenting.
If you’ve ever wondered where to buy ginger, we’ve got great news for you! FruitStand is proud to partner with small, specialty farmers to bring you exceptional quality ginger. To be the first to know when FruitStand is shipping ginger harvests, join our email newsletter!
Do you feel like a ginger eating expert now? Show us your favorite ways to prepare and eat ginger by tagging us in your culinary masterpieces on Instagram @Fruitstandcom!