Freezing Herbs for Home Use

By freezing herbs, you get the benefit of having the herbs almost as if they were taken directly from the plant. There are really two ways of freezing herbs – one by placing in a bag and the other by immersing in olive oil.

To freeze herbs in a bag, you can either leave the leaves whole or chop them up. It doesn’t seem to matter which one as they both work well.

Prepare the herbs by picking them early in the morning before the sun dries them too much. Wash them thoroughly and allow them to dry on paper towels or pat them dry. Do not bruise the whole leaves too much. If you are going to chop the herbs, now is the time. Remove the stems as much as possible.

Once the herbs are prepared, bag ‘em, tag ‘em, and freeze ‘em.

I actually prefer to use a vacuum-sealed bag for my herbs. Take a vacuum bag and cut it down to a small size. Place about two to three days worth of herbs in it and seal the bag. This way, I only have to open one bag for a few days of fresh herbs without compromising the entire batch.

You can also use any commercial ‘zip lock’ type of bag. Just place your herbs in the bag, zip it, and you are done.

Always remember to mark each bag with contents and date of freezing. Simple reminders like “basil, 6/15/2007” work well for me. Herbs frozen in vacuum-sealed bags should be fresh for about one year or so. Herbs in zipped bags should be fresh for six to 12 months.

The second method for freezing herbs is to place the leaves in olive oil. Simply take the herbs and mix with enough olive oil to cover them completely. Then, spoon the mixture into some plastic ice cube trays and allow them to freeze. Once completely frozen, you can take the cubes and place them into a freezer bag.

If you like pestos, you can also freeze them effectively using this method. Just add the herb mixture you like into a food processor or blender, start grinding away adding olive oil into the machine until you have the consistency you desire. Again, spoon the mixture into ice cube trays and let it freeze. Voila! You now have instant pesto available to you.

Since the herbs preserved for freezing tend to be fresher than herbs dried, you should use ‘fresh’ proportions for the frozen variety when using them in recipes.

References:

“Growing Herbs in Texas”, Texas Agricultural Extension Service, Texas A&M University, http://jefferson-tx.tamu.edu/publications/Herbs-in.tx.PDF

“What is the Best Way to Dry Herbs?”, Laurie Winn, Galveston County Master Gardeners (1998), http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/h&v_4.htm