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freezing herbs?

post #1 of 3
3/3/10 at 2:42pm
Thread Starter 
This may seem like a dumb question but I have seen frozen herb cubes in the grocery store and I thought... why am I paying for that when I can grow and freeze my own... but I'm not sure how to go about freezing them so they do not lose their flavour and nutritional value.  My thought was to freeze them in ice cube trays (like I did when the kids were babies and I made their baby food) and then pop them out when frozen and put them in a ziploc and label the bags as to what is inside.  Is this method ok for herbs or is there another method to safely freeze herbs?

Thanks in advance!
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post #2 of 3
3/3/10 at 6:34pm
depends what herbs are being frozen, freezing herbs will most likely make them very brittle and loose moisture in the freezer.

i have frozen curly parsley before it breaks up really easily when taken out and is moist when it defrosts.

fresh herbs that don't tend to keep long such as chives, basil, mint, oregano, marjoram, and tarragon would keep for longer in the freezer. using herbs from the freezer is halfway between using fresh herbs and dried herbs, the quality and flavour would be better than dried herbs but nothing beats the use of fresh herbs.
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post #3 of 3
3/4/10 at 8:03am
This has me wondering.  I grow a fair amount of herbs at home because of the wonderful flavor.  However, those I tried to freeze turned out so dry that I stopped doing that.  What I think I'll try is using my foodsaver to vacuum pack a bunch before going into the freezer.  Or perhaps I'll flash freeze some others using dry ice before freezing.  I've had pretty good luck in flash freezing peppers such as serrano, jalapeno, and haberno.  They don't get as mushy when defrosted presumably because the ice crystals are smaller.
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