Made Simple: Freezing Fresh Herbs

If you’ve read here long enough, you know I swipe herbs from my neighbors. Why grow herbs, when you can steal ’em.

~pulling on ski mask and creeping into their yard at midnight with a flashlight~

Not really, come on now. I’m a Choochie for goodness sakes. I have an example to set. Most of the time…

Instead of stealing, I’m lucky enough who have neighbors who share. Maybe their generosity is spurred on by getting these or these, hand-delivered by yours truly, or maybe they’d share even if they knew I couldn’t bake. No matter. I simply love that they share.

Back when I wrote the original post on herb-snatchin’, we were about to have our first frost and I snagged some fresh basil, cilantro and rosemary. Once I got them home, my hands and house smelled delicious and I suddenly wanted brick-oven pizza.

Since I couldn’t use all the herbs before they’d spoil, I put out a call to my gardeny friends for advice. The consensus was to wash, dry, then freeze the herbs for later use. Some advised chopping, others to lay flat. My Google research had one caveat: once thawed, the herbs might be a bit limpish, so it’s best to use them in a dish that will be cooked.

Gotcha.

My freshly picked haul:

Come closer and smell that aromatic basil. ~faint~

Washed, dried and packaged herbs are ready to freeze. All of the air has been pushed out of the bags for insurance against freezer burn, plus they’ll store flat.

 The bag on the top has a wet napkin inside the bag because I plan on using them on a pizza soon. No freezey.

It’s as easy as that.

What say you experienced freezer of herbs? Anything else we should take into consideration?

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