Preserving the Herb Harvest for Winter

Preserving herbs allows one to bring the garden’s summer bounty indoors for the colder months. There are many ways to preserve herbs for wintertime. They include:

• Drying
• Freezing
• Pesto
• Making Flavored Vinegars
• Making Personal Care Products
• Overwintering Herbs Indoors

Drying

The easiest, lowest-effort way to preserve herbs is to simply let them air-dry. This is easiest to do with certain types of herbs, including seed heads of such herbs as dill, parsley, and fennel; hot peppers (to later grind for spices); and lavender flowers. It is important to hang drying herbs upside down in a place where they will have air circulation, such as by twine from the handle of an upper cabinet in your kitchen. Make sure that the space is fairly dry – you don’t want them to be hanging near your bathroom – and that it is out of the way enough that you won’t be likely to accidentally bump into the herb as it’s drying. Dried herbs gradually lose their flavor, generally starting to decline after about six months, so only dry as much as you think you are likely to use in that amount of time.

Freezing

Some herbs lose much of their flavor when you try to dry them. Basil is a classic example of this, which is why it is unusual for recipes to call for dried basil. One way to preserve herbs that don’t dry well is to freeze pieces of them in ice cubes in an ice cube tray. When you want to use the frozen herb, you can remove the ice cube and simply toss it into the pot of spaghetti sauce or whatever else you are cooking.

Pesto

Though basil pesto is the kind of pesto that people in North America generally imagine upon hearing the term ‚”pesto,” adventurous chefs have created pesto recipes from many different piquant herbs. Pesto is a great way to preserve basil and similar herbs. If you leave the cheese out of the initial recipe and add it when you reheat the pesto or if you make a vegan (dairy-free) pesto recipe, pesto can be frozen for at least four months before use. There are many pesto recipes online, as well as entire cookbooks full of a mix of pesto recipes and recipes that incorporate pesto into a larger dish. Browse online or thumb through a pesto cookbook until you find a recipe or two that sounds especially appealing to you.

Making Flavored Vinegars

Flavored vinegars are another great way to preserve herbs for winter. Basil, rosemary, marjoram, hot peppers, lavender flowers, and fennel are a few of the herbs most commonly used to flavor vinegar at home. Typically, flavored vinegars steep for a few weeks before the herb is strained out of the vinegar. Flavored vinegar recipes are most often for cooking, seasoning, and personal care products. Jim Long’s booklet Making Herb Vinegars is an excellent resource for information and recipes.

Making Personal Care Products

The large number of personal care product recipes in herb books and on herb information sites is a testament to how popular it is to preserve herbs this way. Edible flowers, particularly lavender and calendula, are especially common ingredients in these recipes. There are many books on the market for people who are interested in creating homemade personal care products.

Overwintering Herbs Indoors

Another option for having herbs in wintertime is to overwinter them indoors. In cold-weather climates, this is most often done with tender herbs such as rosemary, bay tree, and lemongrass. It is important not to water these herbs too often during wintertime. Some of them, such as rosemary, also benefit from being brought outside for a few hours on mild winter days.

Extra Benefits

When using herbs from one’s own garden and handpicked supplemental ingredients, one can have complete quality control over their own spices and homemade products, and can continue enjoying the garden’s harvests long into winter.

Resources

For information on a related subject, please see Preparing the Herb Garden for Winter.