How to dry herbs

Drying herbs is a great way to enjoy herbs all year long. Learn how to easily dry herbs without a dehydrator.

Herbs are a wonderful gift! They can be a game changer in the kitchen, finding themselves in meals, teas, and homemade beauty products.

Let me go one step further, GROWING herbs is a game changer. Have you seen the prices of herbs at the grocery store? Okay, well I haven’t, but a long time ago when I bought them at the grocery store they were pricey. Growing your own herbs can be easy and cost effective, plus you know exactly how it was grown!

I talk a lot about eating in season and herbs are a part of that. Eat those fresh herbs in season and by golly, pick extra so you can have a supply of dried herbs in the winter!

Drying herbs is simple and doesn’t require any special equipment. It is recommended that when harvesting herbs, harvest in the morning. Well, sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I’m chasing a kid in the morning, getting breakfast on the table, throwing in a load of laundry, etc. and I just don’t have time to go pick my herbs. So those herbs have to wait until nap time.

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How to dry herbs

Alright, you have that gorgeous bundle of herbs, it is now time to hang them up. Grab some twine and wrap it around the stems and tie a knot. Use the other end of the twine to hang it in your kitchen.

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Well, you could hang it anywhere, but there is something about hanging herbs in my kitchen that makes me feel like an Italian cook. My only caution would be to not hang it directly in front of a window, the sun could cause discoloring and be too hot for those precious leaves.

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Let them hang for a couple of days and then check to see that they are crunchy. Once they have fully dried, grab a bowl and begin taking the leaves off the stems. This is fairly easy. I run my hands down the stem and the leaves fall into the bowl. If you want them smaller, crunch the leaves in your hands once all are in the bowl.

Store in a beautiful jar, because you should.

How to use dry herbs

Once your herbs are dried and stored in that beautiful jar (and preferably sitting on your countertop all pretty and natural looking), there are several ways you can use the harvest. During the winter season, I love experimenting with different kinds of herbal tea combinations. Use 1 teaspoon of dried herbs per 8 ounces of water.

I also love to throw herbs in all of my cooking, from breakfast eggs to evening supper. How do you know which herbs go well in which dish? Well, you could look it up online or just experiment. When I am cooking, I grab a few jars of herbs and smell them, if it smells like a flavor I want in my dish I throw a couple of pinches in (or a tsp. to tbls.).

Dried herbs can also be used to make healing salves. This healing salve recipe from Wellness Mama is my go to salve. We don’t have neosporin in the house, I am not wild about the ingredients. Instead, we use this homemade salve for cuts, bruises and mosquito bites. This stuff is amazing and works fast. We have even used it on sunburn, it works great at taking the sting away.

There are a lot of ways to use herbs. I consider them one of God’s gifts in nature. If you want to learn more about the benefits of herbs, check out this article.

Herbal tea ideas

Here are few herbal tea recipes to get you started!

• Lilac tea
• Honeysuckle tea