Ginger has a lot to offer; it can help with nausea when you have an upset stomach, and is also great for your immune system as it is packed full of a variety of antioxidants. Ginger contains gingerols, paradols, sesquiterpenes, shogaols and zingerone. They all have powerfull anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties making it a great food for your immune system. Ginger is also related to turmeric and cardamom, both of which have similar properties as well, a family of immune boosting foods all-around. As we go through some ideas of how to eat ginger and make it part of your regular diet we will be using some other ingredients that also have immune boosting properties, I will have them listed at the end of the blog.
Let’s get some ginger into our first meal of the day. Instead of trying to come up with a new breakfast hash brown potato or egg bowl dish and forcing ginger in there (both of those are great ideas too), let’s try a super immune boosting smoothie idea. We will be using ingredients that you can easily find in any grocery store and if you don’t like one you can substitute it easily or just leave it out. For our ginger breakfast smoothie we will be using a mix of veggies and fruit and some dairy as well, for the dairy we will be using a Greek yogurt. If you are dairy free check out some of the diary free yogurts that are out there, or try goats yogurt which can be fine for some people with dairy sensitivity. This smoothie can be made ahead of time and left in the fridge overnight, or even for a few days, this way you don’t have to wake the whole house up when blending up your breakfast smoothie.
So we have started the day off with a nice fresh immune boosting smoothie, we are off to a good healthy start! Let’s keep it up with some fresh ideas for lunch as well. Salad is always a good fallback and is easy to get ginger in there with the dressing. I’ll give you a nice easy honey ginger vinaigrette that can go over a simple green leaf salad with just some basics in there, carrot, tomato, red onion, maybe add in some sunflower seeds for crunch and well whatever else you might like to add for flavour. But this dressing will have a nice sweet and tangy taste with a good amount of citrus for your taste buds and that immune system. Check out this quick and easy honey ginger vinaigrette recipe for your next salad.
Another option to use this delicious vinaigrette is over potatoes for a different take on potato salad, or over different grains for a side grain salad, the list could just keep going. But we are moving onto dinner now to work some ginger into the final meal of the day. With the awesome warmer weather let’s keep it fresh with a great ginger BBQ chicken. This one is dead easy as all we have to make is ginger paste. Basically what we are going to do is puree ginger with oil until it is very smooth. The main bonus of this is that once you have made it you can use this paste for the smoothie recipe I gave you or the salad dressing and now you have a heap of purred ginger ready to go in the fridge for what every recipes you use ginger in. This method for ginger paste can also be used to make garlic paste or onion paste as well to have stored in the fridge (up to one month) of the freezer (for a very long time) ready to go when you need it.
Once you have the ginger paste ready to go, we need to marinate some chicken breasts. For this all you need to do is grab your chicken breast, season lightly with some salt and pepper, and rub on some ginger paste to evenly cover the chicken breast. Give it a small splash of oil to help coat the chicken, then wrap it in a bowl and let it marinate in the fridge for about 4-5 hours so the chicken takes on the ginger flavour. Pull it from the fridge about an hour prior to cooking, letting the meat come to room temperature will allow for it to cook more evenly and not dry out. Grill off your chicken and serve with your favorite sides.
Well there we go another set of three immune boosting ideas with ginger and some recipes to go with it as well. Through this series we have talked about 5 different and great foods that can boost your immune system as you eat, we had citrus, red bell peppers, broccoli, garlic, and now ginger. I hope you have learned a few new things about each of these great food items and how they can help our immune system and maybe some new ideas for you to use at home and play around with the recipes.
Don’t forget it’s not just food that will keep your immune system healthy and in top working order, getting exercise, taking vitamins, and eating a balanced diet are all key as well. I hope you have enjoyed this five part series and that you can get the most out of what you eat for your immune system.
Ingredients we used that also have immune benefits
- Onions – Sulfur compounds, Zinc, Vitamin C
- Olive oil – antioxidants
- Citrus – Vitamin C
- Honey – antioxidants
- Banana – Vitamin B6
- Blueberries – antioxidants, Vitamins B and C
- Carrot – antioxidants, Vitamin C
- Greek yogurt – probiotics
- Coconut water – antioxidants
- Tomato – Vitamin C
- Sunflower seeds – Vitamin E
