How to Preserve Fresh Home Grown Herbs in The Freezer

Shari@puregrace
by Shari@puregrace
Easy
Fresh homegrown herbs are the gold standard when cooking. Not a big surprise to anyone. The problem with fresh homegrown herbs is they are not always readily available. In the past few years I have made a conscious choice to live in a more sustainable way, so I grow an abundance of herbs during spring and summer. This way I am able to harvest and preserve the herbs for use when they are no longer in season. This saves the costly expense of buying herbs in a store, and I have the added bonus of knowing exactly what I am getting when I grow them at home.
My first choice for preserving fresh garden herbs is to place them in a bed of ice. I appreciate simplicity and this method is very simple. The herbs retain their color and give flavor to my pure food recipes as if I had picked them straight out of my garden.
Basil Frozen in neat little cubes. Perfectly packaged to toss into that pot of soup or sauce you are creating. The taste remains as fresh as the day you picked them.
Harvest your basil at the peak of freshness before the flowers begin to bud. This way the most potent oils and flavor remains concentrated in the leaves.
Don't leave those herbs sitting out for too long to preserve all that wonderful flavor at its peak,
Rinse your herbs well, and remove the woody portion of the stems. If you are freezing larger leafed herbs, chop to desired size.
Place your herbs in clean ice cube trays. Herbs will float a bit, so take this into consideration when filling your trays to keep them from spilling over.
Once frozen, pop out your cubes and place them in a heavy duty freezer bag. Remove as much air as possible and close tightly. Now you have fresh tasting herbs at the ready for whatever good things you may be cooking up. Buon appetito!
Shari@puregrace
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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3 of 29 comments
  • Steve Steve on Mar 22, 2014
    Mary Lou Nelson ... besides basil, what other herbs do you grow ? And thank you for your reply... I think I'm making progress & ready soon to jump in : )))
    • Nancy Wagers Nancy Wagers on Sep 12, 2014
      @Steve I'm in the panhandle. We have successfully grown basil, oregano, rosemary, cilantro, thyme, lemon thyme, lemongrass, mint, and chocolate mint.
  • Shari@puregrace Shari@puregrace on Apr 04, 2014
    That's a great idea Jossi!
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