My herbs are doing amazing this year in my garden (minus the dill). The sage, thyme, and lavender especially are just bursting. I was thinking of trying to dry some lavender but I have never done it before. Does anyone have experience drying it? I made simple syrup with some of it but that barely made a dent. I read that sage can be minced and frozen in ice cube trays with some oil. Any other ideas? Same goes for the thyme. I’d love to try drying all of them but I honestly don’t think I have the capacity to do so - mentally and space wise, lol. Any ideas are welcomed and appreciated!
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I make sage butter and freeze it in cubes, then use it on fish. I also deep fry sage leaves and crumble them over whatever, very fancy. And if I have a ton of thyme (not this year!), I grab a bunch and smoke shrimp on top of it - that gets rid of a lot. Like this:
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My understanding for drying lavender would be to tie a bunch of stems together with string and hang them in a dry and well ventilated area upside down. Do the same with thyme, and it would then be easy to strip the leaves from the stems. However, I’ve had success just removing the leaves (a bit time-consuming) and leaving on a small dish in my kitchen for up to 48 hours. They dry naturally, and then you can pop them into a spare spice jar for later use.
Oven drying at a very low temperature (like 150 or 175° for several hours )makes sense to me for sage leaves.
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I have done the ice cube thing with thyme (and mint, chives and tarragon) but, as it’s pretty much evergreen so I can cut it in the winter, I don’t think I’ll bother again. Never tried preserving sage as, again, it’s evergreen.
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Im so jealous. None of those thrive in my warm humid climate.
This sounds great! Will give it a try!
I dry lots of lavender for decorative use - cut off long stems with tons of purple visible, lay in single layer in the full sun to dry, then arrange.
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I suppose there are refinements, but drying thyme can be as simple as cutting stems from the plant. I’m sure it depends on your climate, but the cuttings will dry on a counter over a matter of days. Some attention to discarding the larger stems would reduce the amount of space needed for storage.
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I put my excess thyme in a ziplock bag and freeze it. I massage the frozen bag, causing the leaves to fall off, leaving them ready to use whenever I need fresh from the freezer thyme.
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