Celebrate Green Blog

If you remember a couple of weeks ago, I told you about the abundance of basil growing in my garden. I’ve made countless caprese salads and lots of pesto. Now it’s time to start thinking about preserving some of the basil as well as the chives, parsley and mint in my garden before it all starts to go to seed.

Preserving herbs isn’t very difficult, you don’t need any special equipment, and there are several different ways you can do it.

Air drying. This is probably the easiest way to preserve your herbs. First, wash the herbs to make sure all dirt and bugs are off. Then find a dry place that doesn’t get a lot of light, bundle herbs together, and hang upside down. When they crumble between your fingers easily, they are properly dried. Store dried herbs in a sealed container away from heat and moisture. For more precise instructions, Vegetable Gardener has good information.

Oven drying. If you don’t have the proper space for drying herbs, you can dry them in the oven. In a very low oven, about 150 degrees F (my oven only goes as low as 170 and that works okay, too), place herbs on cookie sheets. Prop the oven door open a bit, and allow to dry for about 3 or 4 hours. Then let set out for a day to make sure all moisture is gone and store in an airtight container out of the light for up to one year.

Freeze on cookie trays. Some herbs can be frozen as is, but if you freeze them in a big bunch in a container, you’ll only be able to take the entire bunch out of the freezer at once. But, if you lay the herbs out in a single layer on a cookie sheet and place it in the freezer, you can place the herbs in a freezer proof container afterward, and you should be able to take only as much as you need out of the container at a time. The herbs may change color, but they should retain a good amount of flavor. Basil, lemon balm, marjoram, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme, and coriander all freeze well this way.

Freeze into ice cubes. Another way to freezer herbs and help them retain their color is to chop them up, add a couple of teaspoons into ice cube trays, fill with water, and let freeze. Once the herb ice cubes are frozen, pop them out and store in a container. They can be defrosted and drained later to use or popped right into soups and stews to add flavor.

Make them into herb butters. I recently had corn on the cob with herb butter for the first time. I thought I’d always be a corn on the cob purist – simply dripping with regular butter and doused in salt – but to my surprise the herb butter was wonderful on the corn. Herb butters are easy to make and be frozen in individual or small batches. Herbal Gardens has a few basic recipes for you to start with.

Image: Danny Joe

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Robin Shreeves didn’t particularly like to cook until she started paying attention to how the food she feeds her family affects the environment. Once she started experimenting with fresh, organic and local foods, her outlook on food and cooking changed dramatically. When she’s not writing the eco-friendly food blog for Mother Nature Network or attending to her two personal blogs A Little Greener Every Day and South Jersey Locavore , she can often be found in the kitchen, playing with the food that she prepares for her husband and two boys.