Ask TracyFood: storing basil for the winter 26 September 2007 11:59 am
Posted by Tracy in : advice, books, breakfast, food storage, garden, seasonality , trackbackMarcy (who remains ever so much better than Barbie) writes, very flatteringly,
Dear Tracy, the queen of food,
Winter came quickly this year. My basil plant was flourishing all summer, and now it’s starting to die (silly temperate climate. In CA, it lived all year long). Sure, I could dry the leaves. But could I freeze them
and continue to use them as fresh basil in recipes?
Dear Marcy,
First of all, let me express my envy at your successful basil growing, both in the Pacific Northwest and in California. I keep trying, and I keep having no luck. This year I must have gotten a dwarf variety or something, because the plants never got more than six inches tall, and then they wanted nothing more than to go to seed and flower every chance they got. (For the record, there’s nothing wrong with flowering plants, except if it’s the leaves you want to eat. Then flowering is an unfortunate diversion of the plant’s energy as far as you’re concerned, and you have to keep pinching off the flowers, and maybe I’m not as diligent and fastidious about that chore as I ought to be.)
Secondly, hoo lady do I hear you about this end of the summer. Less than two weeks ago I was stocking up on oats, thinking I would make granola, but instead I’ve been making them into hot oatmeal because the mornings have been too cold for me to consider anything involving yogurt. Even room-temperature breakfast feels risky, like I might have to go curl up in bed to warm up afterwards. What gives? But enough already.
On to your question, at last, and the answer is yes! You can freeze basil. According to a little essay called “Herbs are it” on p. 446 of my beloved Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, you can pack whole leaves (no stems) in Ziploc bags in the freezer, and break off as much as you need for any given recipe. (I’m guessing they’ll be sort of weird and delicate and tricky to handle at first, but still way tastier than dried and therefore well worth learning to use, at least as far as I’m concerned.) Alternatively, you can make pesto and freeze it for easy use later (but don’t use any cheese in pesto you’re planning to freeze — it does weird stuff to the texture). For instance, you can put tablespoons of it on a baking sheet to freeze, and then peel the little conveniently-sized globs off and into another container, the better to be able to grab one when you need just a TB (for instance in a bowl of soup! yummy!) Or you can try this plastic bag trick and let me know how it turns out — I’ll admit it’s considerably simpler than my suggestion, so it looks good to me.
Finally, I’ve never tried drying basil but my whole garage currently smells like the dill I spread out on the laundry rack. It never even occurred to me to freeze the stuff, perhaps because I was raised on dried dill and the home-made stuff is so much better than the store kind. Or maybe I’m just desperate to save room in the freezer for my tomatoes. Either way, I think I’ll give the “no stems, just leaves, in a Ziploc” approach a shot with some of my other herbs, like parsley and cilantro, both of which are so much better fresh than dried. Thanks for giving me the idea!
Happy food storage!
Love,
-Tracy
Comments»
Thank you Queen of Food!
Thanks for the link, Tracy. I might note that I go ahead and freeze mine with parmesan in, and I don’t have any trouble with it. I run Parmesan in the food processor until it’s very fine, almost like meal, in case that makes any difference.
I’ve done several things - blanch the leaves and freeze ém whole, chop the basil, mix with olive oil, and freeze in ziplock baggies, or make ice cubes then store in plastic bags. I don’t freeze it as pesto because I think freezy cheese has a wierd texture.
Once I made pesto with parmesan and then refrigerated and re-heated the leftovers in the microwave. It turned into something strongly resembling pesto-scented cement, so I strongly advocate not doing that.