Herbs are a very easy plant to grow in your garden and fresh herbs are really the best for your cooking needs but how can you preserve your herbs for use later in the year easily? Dehydrating is a simple way to prepare herbs for storage and often you don’t need expensive equipment to process your herbs.
The best time to pick your herbs for dehydrating is just before they go to flower. This ensures the herbs have grown to maturity and have full flavor which is really necessary for good long term storage. Pick your herbs early in the morning before the sun gets to them and wilts them. Dehydrating herbs is best done inside where humidity levels are normally lower if your home is air conditioned. Clean the herbs with water to remove any dirt or debris and place them on a paper towel to remove all excess water.
Herbs like Tarragon, Basil and Oregano can be dried in bunches or they can have their leaves separated from the stem before drying. Thyme, Rosemary and Sage are better dried in small bunches with the leaves attached to the stem.
All Herbs will need good airflow on all sides to dehydrate best so you can place them on a screen, drying rack or hang them but if you put them in a paper bag to catch any of the herbs as they dry then you need to put holes in the bag so it can breath.
The rule is the larger, thicker and wetter the herb is the better it is to remove it from the stem for drying whether you are air drying or using a dehydrator or oven to dry your herbs.
Don’t try drying your herbs in direct sunlight and the bunches or drying racks should not be in direct sunlight.
Most herbs can be fully air dried for great results in 1 to 5 days but if it is humid you might want to use a dehydrator to improve the drying time and quality. If you are using a dehydrator you should read your manufacturer’s instructions on the correct settings but a heat range of 95F to 115F is a reasonable starting point and high humidity requires higher temperatures.
Drying overnight in a Gas Oven that has a pilot light can be an option but many new ovens don’t use pilot lights. Using an electric oven will not result in good drying because it is impossible to control the heat evenly for a long enough period of time. Turning the oven on and off will not help as you will overheat the herbs and cook them. This can result in loss of flavor and quality.
Storing the herbs is best in an airtight container and some people use food grade descant bags to keep the herbs dry and reduce the chance of mold.
Your herbs should be extremely dry at the end of processing and brittle and crunchy they should not be leathery or flexible at all. This is an indication of full removal of moisture.
Final Note
Drying herbs is a great way to introduce yourself to processing your garden products for long time storage. Like anything that is dried you want to remove all the moisture possible and then store the finished product in an airtight container.
You also want to store your herbs out of direct sunlight just like when you dried them.
Even a few herb plants will create more than you can normally use fresh during the growing season so using them in canning, freezing or dehydrating them extends your harvest for many months. I have found that I don’t normally even need to grow some herbs every year because the harvest is enough to last over a year however many people love the use of fresh herbs so in that case you can discard last years harvest after processing this years.