— Roxanne Buttaccio

So freezing herbs is actually a wonderful thing to do. Um, you can do it with all kinds of different herbs. There are kind of a couple different methods to do. Um, one of them is to just, uh, wash them off, um, and then you can pat them off and then chop them all up into, uh, the pieces that you like at the finished project basically. And then what I like to do is put 'em into like the silicone ice cube trays that you can get. Um, and I'll put those in there. And I have one just for herbs, uh, because if you're using them with herbs, your ice is going to smell like that later. Um, so I have one I'd use just for that. I'll put it into those ice cube containers and I'll either fill that with water or I'll fill it with a neutral oil. A lot of people like to use olive oil as well too. But then you can just take that, like, say basil. It's already chopped, and you can take the oil cube or the water cube and put it right into your pan to be able to add the flavor. Um, now you can also just, uh, you know, wash 'em off really well, dry them afterward and then put them into like a baggie and put them in your freezer and they'll freeze like that. And you can kind of just break off as you need to. Um, I typically use the method where I'm going to put it into either an oil or a water. Um, and I do that specifically 'cause I'm putting it into the pan and it just, it's easy, easy for me to use. But I've known a lot of people have just done the, the freezer bag, if you will, technique, and it works well for them. Now, using them in raw dishes is gonna be a little tough because you'll see that like basil is my example again. Um, the basil is going to darken significantly, significantly, um, after being frozen. So if you're putting it into a raw dish, it's not going to look quite the same as, say, if you're using a fresh, uh, basil on the top of it. So keep that in mind a little bit for raw, it's a little bit harder to be able to use the frozen ones. Uh, it's not like they won't work, it's just the herbs discolor a little bit after you do freeze them as well. Um, it's also something that you don't want to let them freeze and just, you know, like f you're thawing them. If they're in like the water ice cube, uh, you wanna use 'em pretty quickly, like you can thaw 'em in an ice cube bowl and like get 'em through that. But again, you want to use 'em pretty darn quickly to be able to get the full flavor and, uh, uh, the appealing look out of them as well too. Um, so you definitely can freeze them. Um, and I would use one of those three methods, either ice cube method with either water or oil. Um, or the third method is to put them dry into a freezer bag. Um, and then you can kind of, you know, pinch them off as you need to. Um, more often I will use dried herbs than frozen herbs. Um, and, uh, just to be able to, you know, you already know what the flavor is going to be, it's pretty consistent. Um, and the, you know, what the color's going to be as well too, whereas the frozen nerve, even if you're taking it out and it still looks very green and the ice cube, you'll notice that once it gets in the dish, it starts to cook a bit, it's going to brown up a little bit.