Our herb garden flourished this summer! It was so nice to pick herbs as needed instead of buying them from the grocery store (and ultimately, letting them go to waste). So before the change to cold weather could kill them off for the year, I picked them and dried them! Now I have a good stash of herbs that will keep me happy through the winter 🙂
It’s really easy to dry herbs. Pick them, wash them, dry them, tie them, and hang them to dry for 7-10 days. It’s really that simple!
Wash & thoroughly dry the herbs. It’s important to get rid of the moisture to avoid mold. Tie each group of herb with kitchen string.
Hang out of direct sunlight for 7-10 days until fully dry. If you are concerned with dust, you could loosely place parchment paper or cheese cloth around the herbs.
I’ll admit that one of the reasons I wanted to dry herbs is so that I could paint the tops of these cute little jars with chalkboard paint 🙂
All dried out. Now you just need to remove the herbs from their stems and crush to your desired size. Store in airtight containers.
If you’d rather not wait a week for your herbs to dry out, there are a couple of other ways to do it:
To dry in the oven, place clean & dry herbs on baking sheet and heat in oven heated at 180 degrees or less for 2-4 hours until dry and crumbly.
To dry in the microwave, clean and dry herbs and remove the herb from the stem. Place a small amount of herbs in a single layer on a paper towel, then place another paper towel over the top. Microwave on high for 1 minute. Check & microwave in 30 second intervals until fully dry. You’ll need to keep a close eye on the herbs so they don’t burn. If they star burning, immediately turn off the microwave.
Yay for herb gardens!