Preserving Basil

About author / Victoria Wesseler

Healthy eating advocate; master gardener; local food expert. Even veggie haters love her recipes.

Fresh basil is the ultimate “scent of summer.” Pungent and slightly sweet, it’s the one herb that I simply cannot do without for warm weather cooking. But its lifespan in the garden is limited. As delicate as it is beautiful, the basil plant is the first to be damaged by frost. In Indiana, our anticipated first frost date is October 6th. How can it be that I may only have less than 8 weeks left to enjoy my garden’s fresh basil?

When I think about not being able to step outside my patio door and pluck the bright green and purple leaves for my cooking, it saddens me a bit. Summer is my favorite season. Once the basil has withered in my herb patch, I know that fall and winter are only weeks away. So, now is the time for me to begin preserving my basil so I can enjoy some of it later in the year.

I’ve tried a lot of different processes for preserving basil and most of them have left me with slimy pieces of brownish, wrinkly leaves from what were once vibrant fresh plants. But a few techniques have worked out well, including a new one I just discovered this year. Here are my tried and true strategies:

• Cut large stems of basil, tie them with kitchen twine and hang them to dry in a cool, dark place until they are depleted of moisture and crumble to the touch. Remove the dry leaves from the stems, discard the stems, and store the slightly crumbled leaves in your spice cupboard or drawer in a glass jar with a lid. Use in stews, soups, and pasta dishes.

• Finely chop a cup of basil in a food processor and add one tablespoon of olive oil while chopping the leaves to create a basil paste. Freeze the paste in ice cube trays and use in salad dressings, soups, stews, and pasta dishes. Mix a thawed cube of the basil paste with a cup of mayonnaise for a sandwich spread or add a teaspoon of it to one cup of a simple vinaigrette and toss the dressing with boiled new potatoes for a flavorful side dish. A bit of the paste mixed into mashed potatoes makes an easy and tasty accompaniment to a roasted chicken or fish. Add one tablespoon with a few cloves of crushed garlic to a quarter cup of olive oil and drizzle over a sizzling steak or grilled salmon.

• Place 3 cups of basil leaves, 10 large garlic cloves, and 5 tablespoons of toasted or dry roasted pine nuts in a food processor and chop finely. With the food processor running, add 1/3 cup olive oil in a thin stream until blended. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and add ½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Freeze in ice cube trays. Thaw and use as you would freshly made pesto. In the winter I like to put a slightly heated dollop of this on a bowl of minestrone or white bean soup.

Recently I came across a process for preserving basil that seemed somewhat unusual. Rose Marie Nichols McGee, owner and president of the Nichols Garden Nursery in Oregon, suggests layering fresh basil with grated parmesan cheese and freezing it in small freezer safe containers.

I tried this method a few weeks ago and used the cheese-basil topping on a pasta dish, soup, and pizza. The basil was as near to fresh picked as I could have hoped for. It was wonderful. When I opened the container, the unmistakable scent of fresh basil filled the air. While I can’t hold onto summer year round, this will certainly make those snowy evenings a bit more bearable and my winter meals will definitely be more delicious.

Serves/Makes: 2 cups

• 1 large bunch fresh basil
• 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese