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Monday, July 4, 2016

How to Freeze Fresh Sage, Tarragon, and Mint

Fall may be approaching and you are looking at your abundance of herbs and wishing that you could have the freshness all winter long. Well, my friend, you can.


Tarragon

Sage

Mint

I used the same process for tarragon, mint, and sage, except I did use my garden scissors to cut the sage from the stems, which was easy to do. Since I'd learned that when freezing thyme and rosemary that the leaves of those herbs mostly fell off the stems when they were frozen, I decided not to spend the time stripping off the tarragon and mint leaves. 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, allow a bit more time.

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 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.

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.)

Source:  Kalyn's Kitchen

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