Preserve Fresh Herbs in Olive Oil | Freezer Method

Well, today’s post is not a recipe, it’s a method used to preserve your fresh herbs for a longer time. It’s a great to preserve seasonal herbs and also a great way to have herbs ready immediately for winter stews, roasts, soups, and potato dishes. These dishes usually call for oil to start with, and so you can take a cube of frozen oil, herbs inside, out of the freezer and use this as the base of your dish. Cook the onions and garlic in this herb-infused oil and let the taste of herbs spread through your whole dish.

Well preserving the herbs in freezer is done in a lot of other ways too, but this method og using oil to preserve herbs reduces some of the browning and freezer burn that herbs can get in the freezer.Given this use, the oil-and-freezer method of preservation works best with the tougher hard herbs such as rosemary, sage, thyme, and oregano. These are all herbs that would probably be cooked when added to a dish.

 

Here’s how to preserve fresh herbs in Olive oil- Adapted from here.

1. Choose firm, fresh herbs.

2. If you wish, you can chop them fine. Or leave them in larger sprigs and leaves.

3. Pack the wells of ice cube trays about 2/3 full of herbs. You can mix up the herbs, too, this can be used in recipes that calls for mixed herbs.

4. Pour extra-virgin olive oil or melted, unsalted butter over the herbs.

5. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and freeze overnight.

6. Remove the frozen cubes and store in freezer containers or small bags. Don’t forget to label each container or bag with the type of herb (and oil) inside!

Voila! you have fresh herbs any time you want, even if they are not in season! 😀 And did you also think looking at the picture, that they look like tasty herbed cheese? 😛 😀