Cool Life Hack: Freezing Your Herbs
You may have heard about freezing bare herbs to keep them fresher longer. But, have you ever heard of preserving your fresh herbs by freezing them in water? It’s a hack that’s been keeping chefs at ease for years. But why? For starters, it just plain works, and even better, it’s easy! You only need a few simple ingredients and utensils.
WHY USE FROZEN HERBS IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Frozen fresh herbs can be used as a cooking hack for when certain herbs are out of season. You might be able to find them in the store, but they probably won’t be great quality, or you’ll only find them dried. Freezing them not only preserves them, but it gives you a simple way to add them to your dish. If you’re making a soup, you can simply drop two ice cubes worth of frozen herbs into the broth for a more fragrant outcome! Use them to sauté, too.
WHY FREEZE THEM IN WATER?
Freezing fresh herbs is a way to preserve them for long-term storage. If you cook a lot (perhaps that’s your hobby, a side-hustle or a full-time hustle), you might notice herbs go brown very easily, or that you can’t find good-quality herbs at some point in the year. Many of them are finicky when it comes to being mishandled and mis-stored. Freezing them in water perfectly preserves their flavor for future use!
HOW DO I FREEZE MY FRESH HERBS?
When you start thinking about freezing your herbs, make sure you have everything lined up on deck for an easier process. First, you’ll obviously need herbs. Whether you grow them yourself or buy them from the store, the best herbs to freeze are mint, parsley and cilantro. Then, you’ll need an ice-cube tray. Any tray will do!
Next, break the leaves away from their stems. You can choose to chop them up finer (for future cooking purposes) or not, but they will generally freeze the same either way. After preparing your leaves, pack them into each ice cube mold. Fill each mold up halfway with water (we recommend Primo® Water) and freeze. After three or four hours, check on your molds to see if they’ve frozen solid. If they have, fill the molds up the rest of the way with water and place them back in the freezer.
The reason we take care to only fill them halfway is to limit the suspension of the leaves in the water so that each leave is fully covered and preserved. If some leaves float to the top and freeze there, that means they’ll be partially exposed to air, leaving them half-preserved!
Once the molds are frozen completely, transfer your iced herbs into an airtight plastic baggie for safe keeping. They can keep in your freezer for up to a whole year!
FREEZING WITH PRIMO
It’s easy to forget that your ice is a product of your tap water. Besides, we don’t use ice for the same purposes as regular water! But it’s something important to keep in mind from here on out. Whether you’re freezing herbs or just making regular ice, choosing safer, better water always gives you the best outcome.
When you choose Primo® Water, you’re getting healthy hydration even in ice! Our 5-step Reverse Osmosis (RO) purification process makes sure of it by removing harmful microorganisms, heavy metals, trace pharmaceuticals and more. If you couldn’t already tell, that’s all bad, bad stuff. With Primo, you’re left with water that’s purely amazing. And yeah, that means ice, too.
So, if you’re wanting to get the most out of your fresh herbs and their awesome flavors, make sure to freeze them. But make sure to do it with Primo! Find a retailer near you to get started.