Conserve Your Herbs

Sometimes I daydream about owning a home. Yes, a home with a yard that stains your toes green. A home with a laundry machine that is vacant when you want to use it... a refrigerator with an ice maker.  Moreover, perhaps the thing I daydream about most is having a home with a vibrant garden, bursting with herbs, root vegetables, and sweet cherry tomatoes. I think about it weekly as I pull off small plastic envelopes containing green leaves of basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, or mint from the refrigerated grocery shelf.  This sparks my desire to walk out to a garden and pick sprigs and leaves in the exact quantities needed.  You see, fresh herbs are meant to remain in the soil instead of in your refrigerator. Have you ever purchased fresh basil and two days later notice that the leaves have withered and browned? Buying these expensive, perishable herbs is the only option for many city dwellers and non-gardeners like myself.  These shriveled leaves being throwing away are really shriveled dollar bills! Forget it, I'm sticking with dried herbs. But wait! Before you give up on investing in fresh herbs, let me share with you some advice for conserving them. 

Step 1)  After purchasing your fresh herbs, rinse them with a gentle stream of cold water, shake them out, and let them air dry on a tea towel. With this step, handle them with care. Some herbs, like basil and mint, can be bruised easily and this can affect their flavor and expedite browning. Also, be sure to let them dry out completely! Turn them and give 'em a few shakes every so often to help speedup this drying process. 

Mint, rosemary, oregano, and parsley (amidst some washed nectarines).
I prefer to purchase organic herbs to lessen exposure to chemical pesticides,
as well as support a healthy environment. Remember, even though organics
are not covered in pesticides, washing is still important for removing dirt and germs. 

Step 2)  While the herbs are drying, label some freezer-safe ziplock bags with their names using a permanent marker.

Step 3) Place dried leaves into its corresponding freezer bag. When doing this, keep some air in each of the individual ziplock backs in order to "fluff" the leaves before freezing. If the leaves stick together too much it is more difficult to cut off individual sprigs or leaves after they are frozen.

Ready for a trip to the tundra.
As you can see in this picture, I place all of my small
herb bags into a gallon-sized bag just to keep track of them.
Keeping extra air in the bags helps to protect the frozen leaves.

Step 4) Place into the freezer and forget about them! They should be good for about six to twelve months. Try to put them somewhere in the freezer where they won't be assaulted by heavy ice cream containers or ham bones (I prefer my freezer door shelf).  

Step 5) After they are frozen, just pull them out as needed. I find it most helpful to use my kitchen scissors to cut off whatever I want, but some herbs are easy to break off when they are frozen. Once you have taken what you need, put them back in the freezer as fast as possible! Also, if you are going to chop your herbs, do this step as quickly as possible too! After thawing, the leaves can be limp, so manipulating the herbs is easiest while they are still crispy with cold. 

Waking up my parsley after a cold slumber.

Herb varieties behave differently in the freezer.
This is an example of parsley and oregano.
On the left is frozen, crispy parsley fresh out of the freezer.
Notice how well it retained its green color.
Parsley holds up very well in the freezer.
On the right is oregano that was chopped while still frozen a few minutes before.
Notice that the leaves have become slightly browned in the freezer.
Both still taste and behave in recipes as if they were unfrozen,
so don't let these small changes in leaf behavior deter you.

Notice how nicely the frozen parsley leaves
(shown in the previous picture) turned out after chopping.
They are ready to add to the pan!
In this case, I was preparing Pizza rustica.

From my experience, the herbs that hold up the best in the freezer include parsley, rosemary, and thyme. I say this because not only do they hold onto their color, but they retain every bit as much of their flavor after freezing. Oregano becomes only slightly brown. Mint behaves the worst, in my opinion, because its leaves become slightly brown and it also loses some menthol potency. In other words, mint still behaves well in dishes that require extensive heating or light frying, however, if you wanted to use it in a mojito you're better off making a trip to the store. I just purchased a big bag of basil and will experiment with it next. I do know that basil keeps well as part of pesto in the freezer.

So, I encourage you to conserve your herbs! They are better destined for a bit of freezer burn than the trash.