Tips for Freezing Your Herbs

If you are interested in growing fresh herbs at home, there may come a point when you 
just can’t use them all. Instead of letting them spoil, you can freeze them. This allows 
you to use them later for recipes and always have them available at home. Here are 
some tips and methods for freezing your herbs.

Methods for Freezing Herbs

First of all, you should know that there are a few different methods for freezing your 
herbs. While the most popular option is often to freeze them in oil, this is definitely not 
the only way you can do it. It helps to experiment with different methods until you figure 
out which one works best for you. Here are some different methods for freezing your 
herbs:

Freeze in oil – This is definitely the most popular method, and keeps herbs fresh and 
holds onto their flavor. What you would do is chop your herbs and place them in 
different compartments of an ice cube tray. Once in the tray, pour in oil like olive oil into 
each one until the herb is covered. Not only will you have the herbs frozen in something 
that locks in the flavor, but you can use the oil at the same time with whatever dish you 
are using. The drawback here is if you want to use them without the oil.

Freeze in water – You can also try this same ice cube method but cover them in water 
instead. The benefit here would be that when you want to use them, you can let the 
herb thaw out, dry it on a paper towel, then add it to your dish, without having the oil 
soaked on the herb.

Freeze alone – This last method is simply to freeze them on their own. You would chop 
up the herbs and place them in individual plastic storage bags, being sure to only have 
one type of herb for each bag so they don’t get mixed up.

Tips for Freezing Herbs

Regardless of which method you choose, there are a few things you need to do first. 
First of all, your herbs should be washed after you pick them, then left out to dry. Once 
they are dried, remove herb leaves from their stems and only chop up the herb leaves 
themselves. Make sure if you are storing them alone or in oil, they are completely dry 
before you attempt to freeze them. The only exception is if you are freezing them in 
water.
