Fresh Herbs Year Long

Keep herbs fresh all year by freezing them in olive oil.  This is an easy method of preserving herbs and you will have fresh seasoning for soups, sauces, stir fries, pesto, salad dressing, and the like, right at your fingertips.

The flavor from herbs comes from their aromatic oils so it makes sense to preserve them in oil.

I previously dried my annual herbs so I had plenty on hand after a cold snap.   That is one way of preserving them but the flavor fades over time.  I still have dried herbs from last fall, and now have an abundance of fresh herbs from this year.  I plan to use up the dried herbs in a salt brine for deliciously tender meats, and have started freezing the fresh harvest.  I started with two types of basil: purple and variegated, pictured below.

Freezing process:

1. Harvest herbs in the morning when their oils are the most concentrated.

2. Wash and dry herbs.

3. Add herbs to a food processor and add approximately ¼ cup of good quality olive oil to every two cups of herbs.

4. Pulse until you get a nice paste.

5. Freeze in zip lock baggies by adding about one cup of herb paste, flatten out, and seal.

6. Freeze!

These are easy to stack in the freezer and don’t take up much room.  Break off pieces as needed.  

Isn’t this a great way to capture the flavor of summer-fresh herbs?  

Enjoy!