Do you grow fresh herbs in your garden or have some naturally growing in your backyard? You can easily preserve some of the extra herbs and have them on hand for use all year! I personally love using and experimenting with a lot of herbs and spices in my cooking, and especially when I’ve harvested and preserved them myself!
Drying herbs through air drying or dehydration is one of the fastest and easiest ways to preserve them. Plus, store bought herbs and spices are usually expensive for the small amount that you get. So you’re saving money and also ensuring that your herbs are grown organically.
Herbs usually refer to the leaves of plants and can be used fresh or dried. Spices are from the bark, berries, root, stem, seed, or other part of the plant and are typically used dried and powdered. Almost any herb or spice can be dried at home to preserve it for up to a year.
There are some steps to harvest your herbs or spices correctly. First, they are best harvested in the morning before about 10am for maximum potency, since beneficial oils in the plant have not yet been affected by the sun. Second, leaves that are harvested should be fresh and green, we don’t want any wilted or discolored leaves here y’all! Seeds should be harvested when they start to turn brown and harden, but before they naturally start to fall off the plant. Flowers can be harvested by carefully clipping the head off shortly after they bloom.
Now, you have several method options for drying your herbs and spices.
Air Drying. Gather the herbs in small bunches and tie the stems with a piece of twine or string. Hang the bundles in a well ventilated area of the house, out of direct sunlight. This drying process usually takes about a week or so.
If it is still warm outside you can solar dry the herbs in indirect sunlight with the same method.
Remove leaves from the stems and store.
There is also another method you could use (which I personally haven’t tried yet).
Oven Drying. It sounds easy but supposedly it is one of the more difficult methods to preserve the quality of the herbs because the temperature must stay low.
Remove the leaves from the stems, and put them on a baking sheet in a single layer. Preheat the oven to the lowest setting. For most ovens it is around 170 degrees F (which is still kinda high). You can also prop your oven door open with the handle of a wooden spoon to let the air circulate. Make sure you keep checking the temperature often, its best if it’s between 100 and 120 degrees F. They tend to dry quickly with this method. Remove them when the leaves start to crumble and no longer bend without breaking.
You can also use a dehydrator with a fan and adjustable temperature. It is the most efficient way to preserve herbs fast and still keep the beneficial properties of the herb or spice intact. But make sure you avoid using a microwave to dry them!
Storing Them
The best way to preserve them is to avoid breaking them up or powdering them until they are needed for use. Store leaves in clean glass jars or air tight containers. It’s a good idea to label them right away to avoid confusing them, as many herbs look the same one dried.
And boom!
Now you have your own dried herbs and spices to use in recipes!
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