“I recently took up ice sculpting. Last night I made an ice cube. This morning I made 12, I was prolific.” – Mitch Hedberg
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.
While fresh is better, herbs that have been preserved well can run a close second. There are several options for preserving herbs. I have narrowed down three that work best for me. Freezing, drying and preserving with sea salt.
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.
Ready for simplicity….
- Harvest your homegrown herbs (or herbs you have acquired at a farmers market, friends garden, grocery store etc)
- Rinse well and remove stems. Pick out and discard any bruised or damaged leaves.
- Chop leaves.
- Place about 1 tbsp chopped leaves in individual segments of ice cube tray.
- Add water.
- Freeze
- After frozen, remove cubes and place in freezer container or plastic freezer bag.
- Close removing as much air from bag or container as possible.
That’s it. Pretty simple. Use these cubes for soups, sauces, sautes or any pure food recipes that do not need the fresh texture of the herbs as the herbs do get soft. The flavor from these herb ice cubes will taste so great, that if you weren’t actually doing the cooking you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
[ois skin=”pure grace”]
Sherri, this is such a great idea! How would you recommend thawing them out before use? I’m wondering if it would be better to let them thaw in the fridge overnight, or to pop them in a saucepan on low til the water melts and then drain? Thanks!
Elaina recently posted…Summer Round-Up: 20+ Simple Recipes Using Fresh Heirloom Tomatoes
Thanks Elaina. The herb cubes are best used when cooking up hot dishes, soups, stir frys, etc. No need to thaw, throw them in to what you are making just as they are. If the liquid is a concern, simply adjust the amount of liquid used in the recipe. Hope this helps 🙂
Blessings,
Shari