Harvesting and Drying Herbs
I have a huge crop of tarragon, thyme, thai basil, lemon basil, and flat leaf parsley in my garden.
We just had our first frost, so I'm ready to bring everything inside to dry.
What are your favorite methods for drying and storing large amounts of home-grown herbs?
I do not own a dehydrator, but have convection, conventional, and microwave ovens...and a kitchen with a lot of windows.
I have successfully dried small batches on paper towel out on the counter, but I'm worried about mold, etc. with such a large crop.
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
6 Comments:
Last month i picked up an electric food dehydrater to make quick work of the zillion jalapenos and serranos in my deck gatden, it quickly dried out my oregano and thyme too. It was a $60 investment via amazon.com but so worth it.
cookinmama at 7:13AM on 10/05/09
Even though I have a dehydrater I generally freeze herbs for the winter. I figure I might as well have as fresh a flavor as possible.
You could wash one of the window screens you no longer need to have in the windows, and then prop it up between chairs, or on a table between books, so the herbs get air circulation from below as well as above.
Alton Brown made an arrangement with furnace filters, tied together and attached to a window fan so there was air blowing through. He never said anything about filter material though, and I'd be a little leery of this. At least make sure you're using cellulose filters. But I don't see why you couldn't do the same thing with sandwiches of window screens.
The microwave is very tricky. I think you'd be cooking the herbs before they dried. The lower the temperature you can dry the herbs at, the fresher the flavor will be.
lemonfair at 8:25AM on 10/05/09
usually i freeze herbs also. wash 'em up -- as in the basil - pick off the leaves, or better yet - make pesto. the italian parsley - i usually coursely chop and stick it into pint size containers and i can usually shake out or pry out what i need. thyme, i usually freeze whole stems (cleaned of course) and frozen - use those in stews, soups..... tarragon, you could probably chop and freeze as well.
i'm not a big dried herb user....
pooch at 9:51AM on 10/05/09
I have a suggestion for the woody herbs - this won't work for the basils. I just put bunches of each herb in brown paper bags and hang them indoors, on a clothesline-like setup. As long as the leaves are completely free of surface water when I put them in there, they dry out before they would mold. The brown paper bag keeps the leaves from turning brown from exposure to light, and provides a nifty way to reuse those wine bags!
scornell at 5:08PM on 10/05/09
remove leaves from stem, place on paper towels and microwave on low at 30 sec internals until dried. I got a food dehydrator at a yard sale, practically brand new, for $15. Works like dream.
AnnieNT at 5:43PM on 10/05/09
I dry thyme, dill, tarragon, sage, rosemary, marjoram, parsley, oregano and the basils that have thicker leaves (Thai, lemon, lime) by rubber-banding them by the bunch and hanging them upside down in paper lunch bags. When the leaves are completely dry and crisp, I shake and pull them off the stems and store them right in the paper bags with the tops folded over.
The herbs with more delicate leaves, like common and Genovese basil and cilantro, I chop/mince very finely, put them in jelly jars and pour in just enough light olive oil to moisten, so that it's like a chunky paste. The jars get stored in the freezer door and whever I need a jolt of cilantro or basil, I scoop out a spoonful and put the rest back in the freezer.
A couple years ago, I was looking for fresh cilantro in the middle of January and couldn't find any, so I bought a tube of it. The label show olive oil and cilantro as ingredients and said to store in the freezer after opening. I was pleasantly surprised at how bright it tasted--very close to being fresh--after a month in the freezer. So now I make my own.
betteirene at 6:54PM on 10/05/09