More About Freezing Fresh Herbs: Freezing Sage, Tarragon, and Mint
I’m a huge fan of freezing fresh herbs, and this post shows my methods for freezing Sage, Tarragon, and Mint. Use Fresh Herbs for more information about using herbs!
Click to PIN More about Freezing Fresh Herbs: Sage, Tarragon, and Mint!
What would you do if you had fabulously bushy herb plants, and you lived in Utah where winter was well on the way? I’ve been freezing fresh basil for many years with good results, and last year I made a wonderful discovery when I was freezing fresh thyme and fresh rosemary. So when I realized this past weekend that summer was going to end well before I ran out of fresh herbs, I decided to try some other freezing experiments.
This post shares my methods for freezing Sage, Tarragon, and Mint, and these herbs appear to have frozen with good results. Here are some tips you might like to try if it’s getting cold where you are and you have a garden with herbs that you’d enjoy using during the winter.
Tips for Freezing Sage, Tarragon, and Mint:
- I used my garden scissors to cut the sage from the stems, and just trimmed the plants of the tarragon and mint.
- For each of these herbs, I cut as much as I thought would fit into a large Ziploc bag and washed it well in my large salad spinner.
- When they were spun dry, I put the herbs into the Ziploc bags. Then I left the bags open and let them sit on the counter for several hours, until the moisture left on the leaves had evaporated. (If it’s humid where you are this will take longer. There’s some rosemary in that photo too, but I’ve already written about freezing rosemary.)
- Then I sealed the bags, squeezing most of the air out, and put them in the freezer. Leave them for a few days or even weeks, depending on the type of herb.
- After that time, the leaves will start to fall off the stems.
- This next photo is a bowl of frozen tarragon after four days in the freezer, and you can see the bare stems where the leaves have fallen off. There were only a few stubborn leaves I had to pick off.
- And this last one is not a very good photo because I took it at night, but here are the jars of frozen sage and tarragon leaves I ended up with. Each is slightly smaller than a mayonnaise jar, plenty of sage and tarragon for a lot of good dishes all winter long. Put the jars back in the freezer, then take out the frozen herbs as you need them.
- The mint leaves are taking a bit longer to fall off the stems so I’m leaving them in the freezer a bit longer, but the frozen mint is also working out well.
Of course you figured out that this is my post for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Ulrike of Kuchenlatein this week.
More about Freezing Vegetables and Fresh Herbs:
My Favorite Tips for Freezing Garden Tomatoes, Fresh Herbs, and Vegetables
Freezing Thyme and Rosemary
Freezing Fresh Basil
If you have more freezing methods for herbs or ideas for using frozen herbs, please let us know about it in the comments.
51 Comments on “More About Freezing Fresh Herbs: Freezing Sage, Tarragon, and Mint”
This is a great guide for freezing herbs! I’m so envious of your gorgeous thai basil! My thai basil is gone for the year.
I’d like to save some herbs in the freezer, now I now how. I have to hurry in 2 weeks my kitchen renovation begins.
Thanks for the useful tips Kalyn! I may try my hand at freezing some of my herbs for the upcoming winter months.
Javagirlkt, not that much work, and very worth it!
EMWK, me too with the chicken stock.
Joey, good idea. I never thought of doing it with herbs from the store, and sometimes I throw them out when they go bad! (Duh!)
Katie, sorry to hear about the herbs not thriving this year.
Peter, me too!
Rebecca, yes, don’t let the chickens get the herbs!
SN, love the idea of the Thai basil pesto. Too late for this time though, my Thai basil is all frozen.
Cindy, love the idea of freezing the aromatics! Perfect for winter cooking too. And it would save so much time.
I combine carrots, onions and celery (all of the traditional French aromatics), put them in the food processor to chop roughly and then freeze in ice cube trays (similar to your basil method). It works perfectly to pop one in the sauce pan when making soup or to saute. =o)
P.s., I love my foodsaver too!
I had a surfeit of Thai basil a couple of years ago (I wish I did now!!) and made an Asian pesto with it that I froze (it froze beautifully). I’m pretty sure I included it in an article at some point, but for the life of me I can’t find it. Anyway, you pretty much just blam together a bunch of Thai basil, peanuts, a pinch of sugar, a dash of fish sauce, chile paste and peanut oil in the blender and finish with a squeeze of lime. Then you can throw a dollop into a stir fry or noodle dishes or whatever. It was so good that I’m always hoping for a wildly overrun Thai basil plant, but alas, it hasn’t happened again since that year.
Cheers Kalyn!
Thanks for the inspiration Kalyn. My herb dilemma is not the upcoming freeze, since I live in a milder climate, but the fact that I recently converted my herb garden into a grazing area for two chickens. So I’ve been sitting and watching my tarragon, thyme, mint, etc slowly die from chicken abuse. Never even occurred to me to freeze them, but now I will, before they are completely gone!
Thanks for adding to your compendium of preserving techniques…I have just this weekend left before the cold weather arrives.
Great idea for freezing tarragon and thyme! I’ve always stripped the leaves, too!
I’ll remember it for next year, when, hopefully I’ll have enough to make the effort worthwhile. The herbs did not like our cool summer either!
I have no garden and no winter…but I do appreciate these tips! Sometimes I buy too many herbs, or can’t use everything, and it’s great to know that I can feeze some of them 🙂 In fact, I just got a bunch of Thai basil that was way to much for the recipe I was making…so thanks for the Thai Basil recipe links as well 🙂
I freeze my homemade chicken broth in the ice cube trays, and now I learned to do it with basil too. Thanks Kayln!
wow. sounds like a lot of work, but it will be well worth it! 🙂
Kelly, I haven’t had much luck trying to grow herbs inside. If you lived somewhere that still got strong sun all winter I think you could do it, but Utah has a lot of overcast days in the winter.
Maria, thanks. Must try your ideas with the Thai basil.
Chigiy, you *are* so lucky to have fresh herbs in the winter. Do try freezing the basil. It’s great in pasta sauces and salad dressing.
Lydia, thanks. I actually haven’t ever tried drying herbs, but I’ve sure enjoyed using the frozen ones.
Simona, thanks. Right now it has a lot of weeds! But there are still quite a few tomatoes.
Tanna, lucky you to have rosemary and sage all winter. (What am I doing here in this cold place?)
Anh, thanks. And nice hearing that you liked the zucchini with parmesan.
Kalyn, you have a wonderful garden! Make me drool!
BTW, I tried yout grilled zucchini with parmesan last nite. Very nice. I ate them like finger food! 😛
My rosemary and sage are good all winter but the basil is another story. We’ll have to see if Gorn will enclose the porch again this winter. My Thai basil was going wild a month ago when I left Dallas, I sure it’s covered with blooms by now even if the neighbors used some.
Your garden is a truly amazing place, Kalyn.
Wonderful post — I tend to dry herbs more than freezing them as a way to preserve the harvest. But I’m definitely going to try your method. Thanks for such great instruction.
This is a great post. We are lucky here because most of my herbs winter pretty well except the basil.
I have always wanted to freeze it and now I know how. Thanks.
Great post! What a great way to save your fresh herbs! I am sure these will come in handy in the winter.
Great tips — it’s the end of the season and the potential for fresh herbs is waning! I know that you can grow them inside, but are they as flavorful?