Has your basil gone jungle? Have the plants become trees? Is it time for a massive harvest before it goes to seed? Have you thought about what you are going to do with that mountain of basil sprigs sitting on your counter? Sure, some bruschetta might be nice for dinner tonight, but that will barely make a dent!
From my (brief) research, there are limited options when it comes to preserving basil:
- Dehydrate it
- Freeze it
- Make & freeze pesto
- Make & freeze herb butter
- Can basil jelly
I already have plenty of dried basil on hand. I really wasn't impressed with frozen basil. I don't make pesto or herb butter because I avoid adding fats to our food (other than real chocolate). And while I liked the basil jelly Nomikins sent me last year, I had a hard time figuring out what foods to eat it with.
Last year, when I had a glut of basil, I really gave it some thought and came up with a way to preserve it in a form that I would be able to use easily. The result was "Basil Flavoring Cubes". Basil goes very well with tomatoes so I used tomato sauce as a base and blended it with fresh basil leaves. The resulting sauce was frozen in ice cubes trays and then stored in a jar in the freezer. Several cubes added to soups, rice dishes, and pasta sauces imparted a lovely basil flavor without any fat.
Here is this year's version. Since I had some fresh tomatoes on hand, I used them instead of sauce. First I roasted and peeled the tomatoes, and then pureed them in the food processor. I also added a couple of small roasted onions for additional flavor. Then I packed in lots of basil leaves and processed it until they were very well-chopped. The final product is a rather unappetizing-looking muddy dark green sauce. The flavor, though, is wonderful. Once the sauce cools (and I make some room in the freezer), I'll freeze this up in ice cube trays for my winter cooking.
12 comments:
I'm dreaming of the day I have too much basil. My seedling is almost ready to transplant. Just one more week. I use tons of basil in soup. It's my favorite herb.
I never heard of having too much basil before
A woman teaching an herb class I took mentioned you could whack off your basil, put it in water and keep it indoors all winter.
Are you spying on my garden? How did you know I have an abundance of basil?!?! I favor freezing pesto. Don't totally discount it, you can easily use vegetable stock to replace the oil. I don't put cheese in mine, so I guess it's vegan! I've made it with chicken stock, and I'm sure veggie stock would be very similar.
Do you know if you can dry basil by hanging it (without a dehydrator)?
Thanks :)
thats brilliant. ok.. so... im gonna let my basil go for awhile. i just cut some off.
thanks for the idea.
if you can stand a little olive oil, make pesto with basil & raw cashews or pine nuts and then a tiny bit of olive oil - you don't need much, you can use some veggie broth, too. It freezes great in ice cube trays.
IB Mommy - do you mean like flowers in a vase?
Abbie - yes. LOL! No, I didn't know that pesto would work without oil. Too late now... And I did know about drying herbs by hanging. I had great success last year drying corn, roasted corn, and chile peppers by hanging them out in the garage.
I saw one other way to preserve herbs - layering with sugar after drying the herbs for 1 day. Has anyone tried that?
I made a batch of sage, lemon, garlic herb butter earlier this week and froze it for winter. Though, I did lick the spoon and man, oh, man I can't wait for the snow to fly! Yum!
Chile, yes, that's what she said. I tried this a few weeks ago and the basil started to grow roots in the vase. I didn't change the water, just added more and it died. So next time I will try cleaning out the vase and adding new water. It did last for about two or three weeks. I guess you could always pot it up as well.
And it also made a lovely addition to the table, except I think it smells like cat pee.
we buy frozen basil cubes as an alternative to those dehydrated pesto sauce packets, and use the basil and some garlic instead. I love it. I'd probably love it more if it were frozen basil from our garden, but... out of the four in my family, only one person knows what's actually growing out there, and he's rarely around to tell us what's going on. which is why my mom and I are plotting replacing the last available dirt space with an herb garden of our own. anyway, frozen basil is indeed very good, and I was wondering recently if any of the green bloggers had discovered the same thing, if not a store-bought version. thanks for answering that! :)
Stephanie - are those the packages with the little tiny cubes? I've seen those. Maybe chopping the basil before freezing would have been better than throwing the whole leaves in. When I pulled them out, they were just ... icky. Sure, the flavor was still there but the texture was gross.
ECB - if I did that, even with Earth Balance, I'd be tempted to use waaaaay too much on fresh pasta. Mustn't. Go. There.
IB Mommy - interesting - both about the rooting and about the cat pee. ;-)
Yes, the tiny ones that are probably chopped. I can imagine frozen whole basil leaves won't be entirely appetizing...
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