Foods To Fight Your Winter Cold

Off work feeling sorry for yourself under the duvet surrounded by a mound of snotty tissues? You have our deepest sympathies, but we’re afraid ’tis the season for colds and flu, and a day or two of trying to remember what it was like to breathe normally while watching back-to-back DIY SOS is sadly inevitable for most of us this winter.

But we’re here to help you get back to health, clear those airways and get away from constant Nick Knowles with these recipes that feature ingredients to boost your immune system and help you breathe a little easier (hopefully).

Most colds taste like lemon and honey. It’s the classic throat sweet flavour, it’s the taste of hot flu-fighting drinks and it’s what we mix with whisky when we need a stronger pick-me-up.

Lemons are a great natural source of vitamin C and potassium, which will give your immune system a boost, while honey is also full of natural goodness to help restore your health.

So, it seems only right to try to incorporate these ingredients into your food when you’re trying to perk yourself up too.

From the Larder has a lovely recipe for Chinese-style lemon, honey and sesame chicken, which includes these cold-fighting ingredients as well as delivering a spicy chilli kick. All of that heat should help to clear your airways a little – we recommend eating this dish in close proximity to a box of tissues!

Some people (trendy Instagrammers, mainly) swear by adding a spoonful of turmeric to hot milk to keep cold symptoms at bay, but we’re not too sure about spicy yellow milk. Turmeric is believed to have all kinds of health-boosting properties from reducing inflammation to being a natural antioxidant, so we’re all for incorporating it in our meals.

Take this chickpea, kale and turmeric stew from Lemons and Olives, for example. Kale’s pretty similar to spinach in that it will help to build your strength up (as demonstrated many a time by Popeye), while the chickpeas will fill up a rumbling tummy, with the turmeric providing your health with a little extra boost. Take leftovers to work with you when you’re feeling up to going back to keep yourself nourished while you recover.

Sometimes, only chicken soup will do. While it does taste pretty good out of a tin, you can get so much more nourishment from your chicken soup if you make it yourself – although, ideally, there’ll be someone on hand to make it for you. However, might we suggest purchasing the Tefal Easy Soup soup maker should you find yourself with no company except for Nick Knowles on the TV?

Lily Pebbles has a soup-er simple recipe for the ultimate chicken soup, which is not only packed with lovely meaty chicken to increase your strength, but also lots of natural vegetable goodness.

Ginger and garlic are also great for fighting a cold – in fact, some people believe that eating them can even help to prevent a cold from starting in the first place. So if you’ve got the first sign of the sniffles, we recommend taking matters into your own hands and cooking up this beef stir fry with ginger, garlic and chilli from Anna Chen Eats.

It’s really simple to make and is packed with strength-boosting protein and naturally-nourishing veggies, as well as spices designed to blow your head off (well, at least clear your sinuses) to leave you feeling a little better, hopefully.

Continuing with the spicy theme, what could be better at clearing the airways and getting your nose running (gross image, but necessary when you’re ridiculously bunged up) than the hottest curry of all, the mighty vindaloo? Nothing. Except someone making it for you. And then stroking your hair until you fall asleep – guaranteed to make you instantly feel better.

Not Quite Nigella’s recipe for a vegetable vindaloo is full of spices to clear those passages and veggies to boost your immune system. You might be tempted by the takeaway menu when you’re feeling under the weather, but trust us, your body will thank you a lot more for spending a little time making this.

Few things go better with back-to-back Nick Knowles than a packet of biscuits. Although sugar can help to lift your spirits when you’re feeling sorry for yourself, homemade will always taste better than shop-bought. And it means you can add a few extra ingredients to fight that cold – namely our trusty old friends, ginger and chilli.

This is exactly what The Caked Crusader had done, creating ginger and chilli biscuits to do what packet digestives cannot. Baking these will help to stop you moping and keep you occupied – and away from DIY SOS – for a little while too. Also, dunking a couple in a brew will make you feel even better. Fact.

If you’re feeling particularly lousy, a hot toddy – hot lemon, honey and whisky – is sometimes the only answer, especially if you’re struggling to nod off at night.

Olivia Potts has very cleverly incorporated these flavours into a hot toddy cake, which sounds like one of the most gloriously comforting bakes we could ever imagine. It also includes cinnamon and ginger, both of which are natural antioxidants.

We hereby give you permission to spend your sick day in your pyjamas, under a blanket, working your way through this entire cake. If anyone dares suggest you might have had enough, tell them you have to eat this cake for the good of your health. By no means should you share it with them.

We’ll finish with a few words of advice: while it can be tempting to eat anything and everything when you’re poorly, if you’re lucky enough to have an appetite, we think you should make the most of it and nourish your body as much as you can. And remember – half an hour in the kitchen means half an hour away from DIY SOS.