Dried Basil

It’s gardening season! I love being able to grow my own food and herbs in my yard! This year we have had a ton going on in life, so my garden is considerably smaller than normal. But I have high hopes for next year! In the meantime, I’m still growing a few things, and one of them is basil. When it comes in like crazy, I always try to think of as many things as possible to do with it. One of the first things I always think of is pesto. We just love it! However, when the tops shoot up into these tall spires that aren’t your traditional basil leaves, my favorite thing to do is go out and trim them all off, throw them in a brown paper lunch bag, close it up, and forget about it for a few weeks (or months if you’re like me). Then I scrape all the dried leaves off the stems, discard the stems, place the leaves in a glass jar, close it up, and I have dried basil to last me the rest of the year (or more). Seriously, it’s the easiest method in the world, and the flavor is fantastic! Plus, I could not tell you the last time I bought dried basil at the store! And at the price of dried herbs, that, in and of itself, is awesome!

Dried Basil

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients

  

• The tall shoots that come out of the top of a basil plant (not the leaves) As much as you want to preserve

Instructions

 

• Cut all of the tops off of a basil plant. These are the parts that shoot out of the middle of the plant, not the leaves. They often also develop some white flowers. I typically either remove the white flowers or don't use the shoots that have too many flowers on them).
• Place them loosely in a brown paper lunch bag. You don't want them to be packed too tightly, so use multiple bags if needed.
• Loosely fold over the top to close and keep any dust out.
• Let sit for about a week (or if you are like me, until you remember and get a chance to do anything with them).
• Check that they are all dried. Take each stem and slide all of the dried pieces of basil off the stalk with you fingers and into a bowl. Discard the stems.
• Place them in a glass jar, label and place in your spice cabinet. Use as you would any store bough dried basil. Usually I crumble it up a bit more between my fingers as I'm adding it to my recipe so that it is in smaller pieces.