Friday, August 19, 2011

Adventures In Drying Garden Basil!

Hey everyone! I grow a six pack of basil every year and use it fresh, but decided that this year it would be fun to dry some for winter use.

Since I love my kitchen toys I thought I'd create a tutorial for using the dehydrator...
Yea, don't do that!
After 9 hours in the Philly humidity I still had limp, wet basil (it should take 1-3 hours). 
Ellen at A Season For All Things has the perfect method for drying basil in the microwave.

Pick basil in mid morning, when dew has dried off the leaves and before the heat of the afternoon sun. 
Give the stems a good couple shakes outside so you don't bring any unwanted hitchhikers into the house.
Hopefully you did a better job than I did in keeping the flowers trimmed off of your plants, 
they diminish the potency in the leaves.

Wash the leaves and place on towels to dry off. Do try to get them as dry as possible.

Place on a paper plate or paper towel and cover with another paper towel. 
Note: If I had a paper plate I would have used it, the Corelle got very hot, keep a pot holder handy.

Microwave for 30 second intervals until you see how long it takes for your basil to dry. 
Ellen's took about 1 1/2 minutes, mine took 2 1/2 minutes.
You'll know it's ready when you can easily crush it with your finger. Cool and store in an airtight container in a dark spot. I reused a jar that had basil in it from the store. The best thing about this is, you can harvest and dry however much is ready at that time.

Quick review:
Dehydrator = forever
Microwave = 2 1/2 minutes
Enjoy that killer batch of spaghetti sauce in February using your own garden grown basil:@)

Updated to say: I just dried my parsley using the mic and read that it's good for oregano too. You have to make sure you take the leaves off of the stems. The stems can burn and possibly burn the paper towel.
There's a write-up on microwave drying in Organic Gardening here.
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