Herb Drying For Dummies - and You, Too

As the seasons change, the summer of my first CSA membership is slowing down. The farmer has been bringing bountiful harvest each and every week. This week, I received a huge bouquet of feathery fresh dill.

Fresh Dill Bouquet

I was stumped with what to do with all that dill. I couldn't possibly use it all fresh in less than a week. Imagine - dill pancakes, dill potatoes, dill coffee, dill ice cream, dill cookies.

I did use a little chopped dill on eggs one morning, and had used some on an entree as well. I could have frozen the dill, but I'd already frozen quite a bit earlier in the summer. I decided to dry the dill.

A quick search of Google revealed several recommended methods for drying fresh herbs - all quite easy. If you were in a crunch for time, for example, you might try microwaving the dill until dry. Seriously – a little dill between two sheets of paper towels, nuke away in short bursts, and you've got dried dill in under five minutes.

The oven-drying method is equally simple but takes longer. Heat the oven to about 180 and leave the door cracked open. Spread the herb on cooking sheets, and pop into the oven. Then forget about it for a half hour.

Three pans of dill drying in the oven

Come back, shake it around. Stir if you're so motivated. Leave it alone for another half hour. Or longer. My dill was probably depressed because I ignored it for so long.

Regardless, I occasionally stopped by, fussed with the drying dill and went on with other things.

Eventually the dill started to crumble to the touch.

Also, when dill is dried, you can lift it up easily - like lifting a cloud or somewhat felted wool. It all lifts up together...like this.

A "cloud" of dried dill

From there, I simply crumbled the dill to release it from the stems. I discarded the stems, and had a small mountain of dried dill. You can follow the same procedure for many herbs.

Mountain of Dried Dill

Which I have no idea what to do with. Freeze? Share?

I compared the freshly dried dill to "ancient" dill from my cupboard – stuff that I have no idea where it came from...or when. You probably have something like this in your cupboard, too. If it's in plastic, it's absorbed the smell of the plastic, and of other spices and herbs that stored nearby. Mine was kind of brown-green, and smelled like dried weeds.

"Ancient" dill from my cupboard

That's a lesson learned for me - herbs purchased at a grocery store do not retain freshness for long. It's important to replace them periodically.  Give them six months, then start smelling; depending on the herb, they can last up to two years. I have no idea how long I've had the weed-smelly dill.

This is what freshly dried dill looks like. 

Fresh dill (and that other stuff, too.)

It smells like dill. It is thoroughly green, and that speaks to how recently it was in the ground and growing on an organic farm. That other stuff in the cupboard? Get it out of your house - compost it, throw it out, I don't care. But promise me you won't use it again.