Jamu is a traditional herbal anti-inflammatory medicinal drink recipe from Indonesia and is most known in Bali. This Jamu juice recipe is made up of cooked and blended turmeric and ginger. It is then sweetened with a bit o' honey and soured up with tamarind paste and lime juice.
Variations On Making Homemade Jamu
This Jamu recipe is mildly spicy! If you don't like as much spice, take down the ginger by half and increase the turmeric by half.
Like your Jamu juice sweeter? Add a little more honey.
If you're looking for a golden yellow color, omit the tamarind paste and add more juice, either lemon or lime juice works.
The final Jamu juice after straining will still have some lighter solids (ginger and turmeric) floating around. Give the bottle a shake to distribute before pouring yourself a glass and/or filter the Jamu a second time (see pic).
Benefits Of Drinking Jamu Juice
Jamu not only tastes good but delivers a powerful punch of health benefits: rejuvenates and repairs liver cells (turmeric), anti-cancer (ginger), aids digestion (tamarind), blood purification (turmeric, ginger, and tamarind).
Anti-Inflammatory Benefits of Jamu
The anti-inflammatory benefits of turmeric (the anti-oxidant called curcumin) in this jamu recipe are more available for absorption to your body if you do one of the following:
- heat it up
- combine it with quercitin rich foods (not applicable here (onions, peppers, capers),
- add a little fat (coconut oil/milk, butter, olive oil, cream, etc..
- add some black pepper
Jamu recipes are not traditionally made with these ingredients but you can up your chances of getting the anti-inflammatory benefits a little fat or black pepper is added.
What To Do With The Solids Leftover From Straining Jamu
A blog reader (thanks Lynn!) emailed me that she is using the solids that are left over from straining the liquid in her omelets. That's a fantastic idea to get the most out of our food, hard work, and to take advantage of the anti-inflammatory benefits of Jamu.
You can also place the Jamu solids in a ziploc bag, flatten them out and freeze for use later. When it's frozen flat, you can easily break off a chunk and use it in soups, stews, smoothies, tea, etc...
Indonesian Jamu Juice Drink Recipe FAQS
It's hard to give accurate measurements of fresh turmeric and ginger so a kitchen scale would be handy to weigh it out. You could also just wing it or weigh it at the grocery store.
This Jamu recipe generally lasts about a week in the refrigerator.
The basic taste of Jamu is earthy from the turmeric and spicy from the ginger. There is a bit of sour or tartness from the lime juice and also from the tamarind paste. The honey can give it sweetness if you like a little or you can omit the honey altogether.
You May Also Like
If you like this Indonesian Jamu Drink recipe, you may also like the Ayurvedic qualities found in these dishes:
Things In My Kitchen:
- Fine Mesh Strainers - for straining the pulp.
- Tamarind Paste - Can be found in most Asian Stores and usually at Whole Foods.
- Blender - I love a Vitamix but it can be costly. This is my favorite more affordable blender.
- Kitchen Scale - For accurate measurements of awkward and/or "non-standard" ingredients such as fresh ginger and turmeric.
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Indonesian Jamu "Juice" Drink
EatSimpleFood.com
Jamu is a traditional herbal anti-inflammatory medicinal drink from Indonesia and most known in Bali. Jamu "juice" recipe is made up of turmeric and ginger, sweetened with a bit o' honey, and soured up with tamarind paste and lime juice.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 6 Cups
- Category: Drinks
- Method: Stovetop / Blender
- Cuisine: Indonesian
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 1.5 oz fresh turmeric
- 1.5 oz fresh ginger
- 6 cups water
- 3 tablespoon honey
- 1 lime, juiced
- 1 ½ Tbsp Tamarind paste
- pinch of black pepper or coconut oil - optional
Instructions
- Slice rinsed ginger and turmeric (leave skin on).
- Add water, ginger, and turmeric to a large stockpot. Bring to a boil (covered), reduce heat and simmer for ~ 30 minutes.
- Transfer to a blender and add honey, lime, and tamarind paste (may need to do in batches if necessary). Blend it. Careful - it's HOT!
- Strain it! (Save the solids for soups/stews/tea/eggs/whatever!) Drink hot or cold.
- Jamu keeps in the refrigerator 5-6 days.
- Careful, turmeric stains everything so wear an apron, clean counters, blenders, and pots/pans/containers immediately. FYI, It will probably stain your blender.
- Happy & healthy jamu juice drinking! Beckie
Notes
- Black pepper or coconut oil are not in a traditional Jamu recipe but makes the anti-inflammatory benefits of turmeric more available for your body to absorb.
- Like it sweeter? Add more honey.
- To spicy for your liking? Cool, reduce the amount of ginger.
- Tamarind darkens the color of this jamu drink. If you want a beautiful & clear yellow/orange, then skip the tamarind paste and just use lime.
- Don't have or can't find tamarind paste? Skip it, use a little extra lime juice instead.
- Don't have lime, but have lemon on hand? Cool, substitute the citrus for what you got.
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