Freezing Herbs

Freezing herbs is a very quick and convenient method of preserving herbs.

It's more in line with our current lifestyle than drying herbs.

Firstly, we don't have the patience or free time of our ancestors - secondly, not many of us have the right conditions in our houses to dry herbs.

Drying herbs is a bit 'hit and miss' - our grandmothers had no option - they didn't have freezers - but we do ;-)

The first step to freezing herbs, is to get yourself focussed and organised.

You will need ice cube trays, freezer labels, freezer marking pen, either strong freezer bags or poly boxes, chopping knife and a chopping board.

I would recommend when freezing herbs to use strong bags, but double them - put one inside the other and watch for tears when you're using the frozen herbs.

Then work out how many times a week (over the winter) you will use each herb?

Say it’s 6 months before your herbs are growing strongly enough in the garden to be able to take a cutting of parsley for instance.

That's 26 weeks perhaps - how many times will you use a tablespoon (that's about an ice cube) of parsley in a recipe?

Twice a week equals 52 cubes - gather your parsley, chop it finely and pack it into ice cube trays - add a spot of water to cover and put the trays into the freezer - 4 or 5 trays will be enough here.

When it's frozen solid, turn the cubes out and put them into a labelled poly bag or box - labelling is important here - they really all will look the same ;-)

Work through this 'sum' for all the herbs you want to freeze.

Bear in mind, it's fun to grow herbs indoors as well - many of them will overwinter indoors and it won't be a drain on your freezer space.

Freezing herbs takes a bit of time, but you'll be rewarded with the taste of fresh throughout the winter months.

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