I love planting herbs in my flower beds. They are fragrant AND functional AND beautiful (see there, three things herbs do). Many in my zone (zone 5) such as sage, chives, greek oregano, mint and thyme are also perennial, which means they will give you years of joy and use. Herbs such as basil, rosemary, parsley don’t quite make it over the winter here in Illinois, but they thrive in the summer outside. And if I am responsible enough, I remember to bring them inside in the winter.
In the summer, I prefer to use fresh herbs, because, well, I can and all I have to do is walk outside and snip some fragrant sprigs. However, early summer is also the time to start drying for year-round use as this is when many herb leaves are most pungent. Last year, I dried Rosemary, Sage, Greek Oregano, Thyme and Cilantro. I dried a lot of plant material. So much, that I gave a chunk of it away for Christmas. I thought I kept enough for myself. Sadly, I ran out of oregano in March. I was kicking myself when I broke down and bought it at the store (twice) because I could have harvested it for free from my garden.
So this year, I am going to dry a lot more. Starting today. Below is my tutorial for drying garden herbs. To be honest, I haven’t dried basil because I prefer it fresh. Also, I can’t get chives to turn out right (though that’s okay because these suckers grow until the snow covers them). But this method has worked for rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage, tarragon, dill, fennel leaf, and mint.
1) Gather bunches of your herbs. It’s okay if you cut the plant back significantly, up to 75%. It’ll grow back. If the herbs are dirty, wash your bunches and shake off excess water. If the herbs are clean, adding water only encourages mold. Don’t worry about the bugs… you already consume them in all the other food you eat, as allowed by the FDA. (Here’s a fun link to make you never want to eat again!) On the bright side, whatever you pull out from your garden is likely cleaner and less buggy than store bought stuff.
2) If you did not wash your herbs, skip to step three. Otherwise, lay your herbs on a clean dish towel in more or less a single layer to dry off excess water. If you have a lot of herbs, you may need more than one towel. The idea here is to just dry them off as much as possible. You can use paper towels for this, but you’ll go through a lot of them to get your herbs dry.
3) When your herbs are free of water, strip the leaves from the stem. Many people hang their herbs by the stem. That method works fine…except that your herbs accumulate dust (and in my house, cat dander) in the several days it takes to dry them. Plus, you’re supposed to keep them out of the sun, in an airy location, in small bunches, etc. If you’re drying a large quantity, this is not practical. Really, they’ll just be a challenge my cat has to meet if I start hanging things all willy nilly. And I have found that herbs left on the stem take longer to actually dry (you know, because the stem is a food supply). For those reasons, I immediately strip the leaves from clean and dry herbs. You don’t have to be that precise about removing every stem at this point because you will continue to clean up the leaves at every stage. Lay your leaves in a single layer on the clean and dry towels and cover with a clean dry dish towel.
4) Up to now, you really have been working on getting your herbs clean and dry. You have stripped the stems to get them ready to dry. Depending on the quantity of herbs I am drying I use 2 different methods. For small quantities, I stick them directly into these tea pouches that I always have on hand for loose leaf tea.
The herbs stay in there, protected from dust until they are nice and crinkly.
I then transfer the herbs to a glass container and keep in my spice drawer away from the stove.
These tea bags are perfect for low-fuss, small quantity drying. If I wanted to have 30 of these little pouches all over the place, I could dry larger quantities, but for me, that’s not practical. However, for large quantities, you need to lay the herbs in a single layer across a larger surface.
My preferred method is using paper towels. I know! This is wasteful BUT paper towels work beautifully for herb drying because they are very light, wick moisture and allow air to pass through multiple layers). You can re-use them when you are done drying the herbs, so it is not all bad. You can also use coffee filters and cheesecloth. Or, if you are super ambitious, can make a framed screen to use over and over. Dish towels don’t work well for multiple days of drying because they are heavy and tend to enclose the layer of herbs and retain moisture underneath.
Depending on the herbs, they will take anywhere from a couple days to several days to dry. When they crumble between your fingers, then are done. Keep them as whole as possible to retain as much flavor as possible. I don’t really think it matters if you store them in a cool, cabinet or the refrigerator as long as they are in a sealed container.
I also just came across this method from Martha Stewart and think it has excellent potential:
Preserve Herbs in Tulle
1. Make sure herbs are rinsed and dried.
2. Cut tulle in 18-by-24-inch pieces.
3. Arrange herbs on the tulle, and roll into tubes.
4. Tie the ends with raffia or twine.
5. Store in refrigerator for two weeks.
6. Once herbs are dry, crumble into storage tins until you are ready to use them.
Life Improved 