Drying Herbs
by Elizabeth July 8, 2020
Buying herbs from the store can be pricey. If you don’t believe me see how much money I save by growing my own. All during the growing season I have herbs hanging up or laying out to dry. It’s so easy to dry herbs and bring the flavors of summer to your meals all year round. These 4 easy steps work for most herbs.
Step 1 When to Harvest
Pick the herbs in the morning. By Harvesting in the morning, the herbs will maintain the most flavor.
Herbs like to be harvested. Harvest little and often to encourage your herbs to keep producing.
To harvest herbs like basil, you want to cut above branching leaves. This will allow the plant to create more branches, encouraging the plant to grow bigger and bushier.
Step 2 Cleaning and Bunching
Clean the herbs. Rinse with cool water. Pick off any bad, old or damaged leaves.
Place in small bunches, with stems all facing the same direction, on paper towels to drain.
Every once and a while, I find a garden spider that clings to the harvested herbs. I take them back outside. These good spiders are beneficial and will eat pests!
Step 3 Hanging to Dry
- Cut a piece of string about 10-12” long. (You can cut the string longer or smaller depending on your space.)
- Tie ends of the string together.
- Tie the string around the cut ends of the bunches of herbs.
- Hang them upside down to dry.
I use command hooks placed on the underside of my kitchen cabinets. Loop the string around the hook. It might take a week or more for herbs to dry.
Smaller bunches allow for more air circulation and will dry faster. While some herbs, like rosemary, take longer to dry because of the oils.
When I run out of hanging space, I’ll lay them in small bunches on paper towels to dry.
Step 4 Storage
Once the leaves are crunchy and dry, remove leaves from the stems and place or pack them into clean jars. Label the jars with the type of herb.
You don’t have to crush or grind the leaves. This can be done, with your hands, right before you use them in recipes. I’ve found this keeps the most flavor in the leaves.
I throw the stems, strings, and all, into my compost bucket.
Drying your own herbs is not only cost-effective and easy, but they also make great gifts!
By following these steps you can have flavorful, dried herbs without the cost.
Also try these steps with parsley, chives, sage, rosemary and many more!