Preserving Herbs In Olive Oil

This season, I have been super lucky in my herb garden. Not only has there been overgrowth since many plants lived thru the winter into spring, but Ive also had to cut back entire plants to make room for summer peppers. In other words, Ive had a huge amount of herbs on my hands. This most recent bouquet of herbs is from my co worker Trish who has a green thumb and is always willing to share her harvests.

I knew that I had too many fresh herbs to use before they would start to turn. In the past I have used the dehydrator but this time, I wanted to try freezing them in olive oil. Ive seen it on Pinterest and gave it a try. Please feel free to play along...

Tonight I have in front of me - Sage, Parsley and Rosemary. Go ahead and clean these up and pat them dry.

Herb bouquet

Once you get them chopped up - split them up into separate ice trays and then fill each square half way up with olive oil. Make sure to cover as much of the herb as possible to seal it all in.

Swimmin in oil

Once you've got everything evened out - place in your freezer. If you are concerned about herby smell in your freezer - feel free to stick in a freezer bag. Let sit overnight.

Freeze
Freeze
Freeze

Freeze baby freeze

 The next morning, remove from freezer. Let trays sit on your counter for about 5 min to warm up a little bit and then turn upside down against cutting board and the cubes should fall out freely. Aren't they kind of pretty?

Rosemary in oil

Parsley in oil 

Once you get them out of the tray, you have to move pretty fast because they start to melt fairly fast. I put them in separate jars - labeled them and then protected them with a dinosaur. I suggest you do the same.

T-Rex guarding the herbs

And now, lucky me and lucky you - anytime we want fresh herbs we can just grab a square or two! Perfect for fish, potatoes, chicken, rice, pasta and a million trillion other things that taste wonderful with olive oil and herbs! This was a pretty easy peasy one - let me know if you give it a try!