6 Unique Ways to Preserve an Herb Harvest

There are many ways to preserve the herbs from your harvest.  Here are a few quick and easy ones to get you started.

Freeze leaves in water

Quick and easy, you just grab an ice tray fill the square halfway with water and add the herb leaves.  You can leave the leaf whole or chopped them fine.  Pop them into the freezer.  Once the cubes are frozen fill the tray the rest of the way with water and freeze again.  This two-step method makes sure the leaves stay covered by the water and ice so they keep their green color.

Once finally frozen you can pop put the cubes and place them in a zip lock bag for long term storage.  This will give you herbs for casseroles, soups, stews and long cook dishes all winter.  Discard the cubes once the spring harvesting begins.

Make a Bouquet Garni Bundle 

Bouquet garni is a bundle of herbs (thyme, bay, parsley, rosemary, savory) used in long cook soups and stews.  It is great in the crock pot where you can hang the bundle from the side and let the flavor infuse the dish, then remove the bundle when cooking is over.  You do not have to worry about leaves in the dish or picking out bay leaf.

You can use a bouquet garni fresh, or you can make fresh bundles and hang them to dry.  Once dry, you can wrap a cello bag around them and give them as a gift along with a soup recipe, or save their wonderful goodness all for yourself.

I have previously posted recipes to use with bouquet garni too!

Dry in a paper bag

Savory, Thyme and rosemary are all great candidates for bag drying.  The leaves have a small size and very little moisture, so you toss the cut stems in a bag, hang it on the wall and let the herbs dry.  Sometimes depending on humidity, I will give the bags a shake every few days. No other special treatment is needed and the herbs will be try enough to be stripped from the stems for storage in about a week.

Honey or Vinegar Infusion

Make an infusion of herbs transferring the flavor into another medium.  You can create a vinegar or honey.  See these posts for detailed instructions.

How Tuesday on making vinegar

Recipes using Herbed Vinegar

Make a compound butter

A compound butter is any plain unsalted butter to which you add herbs. You can create a single herb flavor or blend the herbs tighter to create a variety of flavors.  The general rule is 1/8 to 1/4 cup herbs into 1 stick unsalted butter.

Here is one of my favorite versions:

1 tsp parsley, finely chopped

1 tsp thyme leaves

1 tsp chopped chives or garlic chives

1 tsp tarragon

Blend the herbs into 1 stick of room temperature unsalted butter with a fork to get the herbs evenly distributed.  Then roll the soft butter into a sausage in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to eat in a week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.  You can use the butter on fresh steamed vegetables, steaks, baked or roasted potatoes, rice, egg noodles are on your morning toast of muffins.

I have more recipes for making compound butter (also called Herb Butter) all over the blog, but here is one of my first. 

Make a salt

There are several ways to make herb salt.  My two favorites are just to layer the whole herb leaf in salt and allow the salt to absorb the flavor from the leaf then later remove the leaf and you have white salt infused with flavor.  Another way is to run the salt and herbs in a coffee grinder.  I start with a larger salt so that I get a fine salt with fine flakes of herbs in it. 

You can also make an herb salt with chopped fresh leaves that you stir into salt, then spread on a baking sheet and allow to dry in the open air for 2 to 3 days to a week depending on humidity.  This is a great way to infuse the salt with a mixture of herbs, like a blend of chives, thyme, parsley and sage.  You use about 1 teaspoon of chopped fresh herbs to ¼ cup of salt (I like kosher.)  Once the herbs and salt have dried, you can place the mixture in a jar where it will keep its herbal taste for at least a year.

We will be posting more ways to make herbed salt and flavored sugar later this fall.

Preserving Herbs - A collection of posts

It is that time of year when i need to discuss preserving herbs.  I do this about this time of year every year.  The herbs are getting full and bushy and now is the time to take some and preserve them for the winter.

There are many ways to preserve the fresh flavor of herbs.  We just harvested the small herb patch we have in our community garden this week (and wrote about it if you want a quick overview.)

General Posts on Preservation

      Your Herbal Harvest

      Storing Your Herbs

Drying Herbs
I have talked about various methods for drying herbs for years.  Here are my best posts on the subject:

     Air Drying Herbs

     General Drying Methods

     How to Dry Your Harvest  

     Drying Herbs in the Microwave

   

Freezing Herbs

    Herbal Seasoning Ice Cubes

    Freezing Herbs









Preserving in Vinegar or Wine

     Making Herbed Wine

     How to make herb vinegar

     Making tarragon vinegar

     Making Pesto

     Using herbal vinegar

How Tuesday - Compound Herb Butters - Summer's Special Gift

Today's How To-sday is about making Herb Butter, sometimes called Compound butters

Herb butters are the best way I know to dazzle a dinner guest. Besides being less hazardous than letting your husband start the charcoal, they are embarrassingly easy to make and you'll rake in the compliments. As I say when I lecture, even some small part of you wants to seem like Martha Stewart, so why not take the easy road.  Herbal Butters are a terrific way to show off all the work you've put into your herb garden and relax while doing it!   

Nothing beats the savory flavor of herb butter with a warm loaf of bread, but don't limit yourself--use them when grilling steaks, broiling or sautéing fish; scrambling, poaching and frying eggs; basting chicken, dotting on carrots, squash, zucchini or roasting new potatoes. Herbs pack the butter with more punch, so you use less, saving fat and calories.

You can use either butter or margarine, but the flavors are different--especially when cooked. Butter develops a remarkable nutty flavor--incredible with most vegetables, but margarine is better for high-temperature cooking because it doesn't scorch as easily.

To prepare the herb butters, start by softening the butter or margarine. (All these recipes call for 1 pound -4 sticks, but you can halve them). Using an electric or stand mixer, beat until light and fluffy, scraping the sides often.  Blending will take anywhere from 3-5 minutes, depending on how powerful your mixer is and how bored you get.  The longer you blend the lighter and more spreadable the butter.  If in a hurry or if you want a less fluffy butter, you can use the faster method of skipping the beating and just using a fork to blend the herbs into softened butter.   To lower the fat, beat in a small amount of skim milk (no more than 1/3 cup per pound of butter).  

Once the butter is well mixed and fluffy, add the minced fresh or dry herbs and beat until well combined. When using dry herbs soak them for about 10 minutes in a tsp. of lemon juice before mixing into butter.  The basic instructions are the same for all the recipes listed here.

Herb butters are best made ahead so the flavors can blend--chill them at least 3 hours and serve slightly softened. They'll keep in the refrigerator for a month and can be frozen for up to 3 months.  

Marjoram - Thyme
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sweet marjoram, or 1 1/2 teaspoons dried (soaked in white wine or water)
1 1/2 tablespoon minced chives
1 tablespoon minced thyme
1 tablespoon minced parsley

Mix as instructed above.  Delightful with fresh bread, fish or vegetables--brush on new potatoes, cover and bake for 45 minutes.

Lemon
1 small clove garlic, minced or pressed
1 tablespoon lemon rind
1 tablespoon orange rind

1 tablespoon mixed lemon herbs like lemon thyme, lemon basil lemon balm or lemon verbena
A perfect accent for baked or broiled chicken, fish or duck.   

Rosemary
2 tablespoons minced rosemary (only 1/2 Tbls. dried)
2 tablespoons minced chives
Robust flavor is excellent with chicken, game hens or a hearty bread.

Jalapeno
6 jalapeno peppers (more if you're brave), seeded and well-chopped
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
Try this with corn on the cob, chicken or potatoes.

Consider these recipes a springboard: other herbs good for butters include lemon thyme, basil, tarragon, sage and dill--and don't forget seeds, too. As a general rule, use 1 tablespoon fresh herbs per 1/4 pound butter.

TO SERVE --

•  To eat with a crusty bread, pack it in crocks. For a more dainty look use a Madeleine pan, ramekin or small molds. (You can remove the butter more easily from a mold if you set it in a pan of hot water for a few seconds.)   
• You can use a butter curler to make short or long curls or a melon baller for balls. Add texture to balls if you like with the back of a fork (peanut-butter-cookie style).
• For individual portions, form the herb butter into a log, roll in minced herbs and slice into rounds. (This version freezes very well.) 
• In a hurry? Shape into a mound on a plate using a rubber spatula (or your hands, I won't tell) and surround with the fresh herb of your choice.  If that's too messy for you, shape it on wax paper instead of a plate and chill for a few hours--the cold butter will be easy to transfer to a clean plate.
• Or you can pat the butter onto a waxed-paper-lined shallow pan, chill and cut out shapes with cookie cutters, smoothing the edges with a finger dipped in hot water and garnishing with fresh herb sprigs.  

Use your inner Martha Stewart and create even more delightful butter designs.

If fresh herbs are not something you have access to, we recommend our specially blended herbs for butters and cream cheese, like Herbal Spread, Butter N Cheese and Cilantro Spread.  We have a Cream Cheese sampler with all three or you can buy a set of our 5 best butter blends here.

Freezing Herbs - Preservation in Ice

About a week ago I posted ways to dry your herbs in the microwave. Today I am going to present another method of preserving herbs. When drying an herb you can change the flavor, but preserve it. However, some herbs, like chives lose so much flavor in drying that the dried herb is a shadowy substitute for the real thing. So if you want to preserve a closer to fresh flavor, freezing may be the answer. There are many different ways to preserve herbs through freezing. Some have a longer life than others.



Short Term Storage (three weeks)

Lay whole herb leaves (for sage or basil) or whole sprigs (like thyme or tarragon) onto cookie sheets lined with parchment or wax paper. Place the sheets in the freezer for at least one hour, or until herbs are frozen. Then place the frozen herbs into freezer bags and press out excess air. Label the bags with contents and date.

To use the herbs, remove leaves or sprigs you need and chop them into your recipes. No need to defrost before use.


Longer Term Storage


Herbal Ice cubes – (4 months)

Freezing chopped herbs in water or broth. Although not as concentrated as oil purees, the individual cubes are easy to add to winter recipes.

Freeze recipe-sized portions of herbs in the liquid base you most often use for winter soups, stews, sauces and marinades. Later pull out the individual cubes and drop them as needed into the cook pot.

One of the easiest ways to do this is chop and blend the herbs, then measure 1 tsp. to 1 Tbls. Into sections of an ice cube tray then cover with broth or water. Once they are frozen pop out the cubes and place them in a zip seal bag with the measurement and herbs listed on the bag.


Frozen Puree – (4 months)

Pureeing, or making an herbal paste, is the more reliable method for freezing fresh herbs. All you need light oil, fresh herbs and a blender.

The technique involves slowly drizzling canola, safflower or other cooking oil while chopping the leaves in a blender. The oil coats the herb particles, preserving their color, flavor and texture. Purees can be used with any culinary herb. You can combine two or three herbs and even add garlic if you want. Freeze the herb puree in small containers so that you can use what you defrost within a week. Always label the jars with contents (herbs and oil used) and the date.

Purees are ideal in any dish including roasted meats, vegetables, sauces, butter, marinades, and salad dressings. They are used as an equal substitute for the freshly chopped herbs. So, if a recipe calls fro 1 Tbls freshly chopped basil, simply substitute 1 Tbls. Basil puree.

To create Puree:

• 1 to 2 cups fresh herbs
• ¼ to ½ cup oil

Gently rinse and dry herbs. Put the herbs in a blender or food processor and pulse-chop until finely minced. With the motor running, slowly drizzle the oil into the chopped herbs until they are coated completely, but without excess oil pooling at the bottom. If the herbs look dry, add a bit more oil and mix well. Scoop puree into small, ¼ to ½ cup containers. Pour a layer of oil over the top, then cover, label, date and place in the freezer.

The best part of these methods? When winter gets you down, these will be a tasty reminder of summer’s bounty and that winter will not last forever.

These recipes are just one aspect of the Backyard Patch. For more details on Herb Puree (Pastes) search our blogs in August 2010. To read our herb research, or see a listing of our more than 200 herbal blends for cooking, tea and bath visit the Backyard Patch on-line at http://www.backyardpatch.com/