How Can Fresh Herbs Be Preserved by Freezing?

Fresh herbs like mint, dill and parsley can be frozen and kept for months; this saves them from wilting in the fridge within a few days and lets you hold onto them well past their season.

The simplest method is packing finely chopped herbs into the wells of an ice cube tray and topping each one with water or olive oil before freezing. Each cube then becomes a single cooking-size portion that can go straight into the pot.

Which herbs freeze well?

Sturdier herbs like dill, mint, thyme and rosemary hold their texture well once frozen. Delicate leafy greens like lettuce or arugula turn watery when frozen and mushy once thawed, so freezing isn't a great fit for them.

Basil tends to darken when frozen; dipping it in boiling water for a few seconds and then straight into cold water before patting dry and freezing helps keep the color.

How do you use frozen herbs?

Frozen herb cubes can go straight into soup, sauce or a sautéing pan without thawing first; they melt in quickly as the dish cooks. For anything that calls for raw herbs, like a salad, freezing isn't the right choice, but for cooked dishes it's one of the most practical ways to use up a herb glut.

Writing the freezing date on the bag helps track which batch is older, which matters once several different frozen herbs start piling up in the freezer.

Is drying an alternative to freezing?

Some herbs, like mint and thyme, can also be preserved by drying instead of freezing; dried herbs have a longer shelf life than frozen ones, though they lose some of that bright, fresh aroma.

Freezing is the better choice for anyone wanting to keep a flavor closest to fresh, especially for herbs added at the last minute to a sauce or soup, where that difference shows up clearly.

For anyone with a garden or buying herbs in bulk from the market, combining both methods makes sense: freeze the herbs used often, and dry the less common ones for the pantry.

Herbs frozen in oil can go straight into a dish being cooked; the oil somewhat cushions the ice crystals that form during freezing from damaging the texture too much.

Frozen herb cubes shouldn't be thawed and refrozen; doing so noticeably weakens both the aroma and the color.

When labeling frozen herb cubes, noting not just the herb but what it's meant for, dill for soup, say, makes deciding what to grab quicker later on.

Anyone with a large haul of fresh herbs can split it between freezing and turning part of it into something like herb butter, combining freezing with another storage method at once.

In the end, a few minutes spent freezing is the easiest and cheapest way to hold onto the flavor of seasonal herbs for months at a time.

Whatever the herb, patting it fully dry before freezing also somewhat limits how large the ice crystals grow and keeps it from turning mushy as it freezes.