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Herbs
Herbs split cleanly into two groups for preserving, and the split is about water. The tough, low-moisture, resinous ones — thyme, oregano, marjoram, sage, savory — dry brilliantly and are better dried than fresh in a winter stew. The soft, wet ones — dill, parsley, chives, basil, coriander — lose almost everything in a dehydrator and belong in the freezer.
The season
Cut through the summer. Dill crowns — the flowering heads that go into the cucumber crock — come in late July, which is exactly when the cucumbers do.
Acidity decides the method
Herbs are low-acid, which is why herb-in-oil preparations carry the same warning as garlic in oil.
This is a reference guide, not a recipe authority and not medical advice. The one organism the safety rules here are written against is Clostridium botulinum, and the one way to be protected against it is a tested recipe followed exactly — substitutions of the acid, the sugar or the salt are not cosmetic. Where the national food authority publishes advice for a specific food (Baltic fish, wild mushrooms), that advice outranks this page.
Method by method
| Method | Verdict | The note |
|---|---|---|
| Freezing | Best | For soft herbs: chopped into ice-cube trays with water or oil, or simply bagged flat and crumbled frozen. |
| Drying | Best | For woody herbs: 35–46 °C in the dark, or hung in bunches somewhere airy. Store whole leaf, crush when you use it. |
| Fermenting | OK | Herbs go into vegetable ferments as an ingredient rather than being fermented themselves. |
| Pickling in vinegar | OK | Dill crowns are the classic pickling ingredient rather than the pickle. |
| Jam and sugar preserves | Poor | Herb jellies exist and are made with apple juice for the set. |
| Water-bath canning | No | Herbs alone are low-acid and are never canned on their own. |
| Pressure canning | No | No reason to. |
| Curing and salting | Good | Herb salt — chopped herbs packed with plenty of salt — is a genuine traditional preserve, and the salt is what keeps it. |
| Smoking | No | No tradition. |
| Root cellaring | Poor | A bunch in a jar of water in the fridge holds a week. |
The classic preparation: Dill for the cucumber crock, and frozen herb cubes
Dill is the pivot of the Baltic preserving summer, and it is used at three different stages of its life: fine feathery leaf for the kitchen, the flowering crown for the cucumber crock, and the ripe seed for bread and for a stronger pickle. The crowns are cut in late July and go straight into the brine with the cucumbers. For everything else, freezing beats drying comprehensively: chop the herbs, pack them into an ice-cube tray, top up with water or with a neutral oil, freeze, and turn the cubes out into a bag. A cube goes straight into the pan. Herb salt is the other traditional route — chopped herbs worked into coarse salt at roughly a one-to-one volume, which keeps in the fridge and seasons and preserves at the same time.
Preparation that matters
Cut herbs in the morning after the dew has gone and before the sun is high, when the aromatic oils are at their strongest. Wash only if they need it and dry them completely — wet herbs mould on the drying rack and clump in the freezer. Dry woody herbs in the dark: light is what turns dried herbs from green to grey hay. Strip the leaves from the stems after drying, not before, and store them whole rather than crushed, since a whole leaf holds its oils far longer than a powder.
What the preserve is worth
Herbs are used in quantities too small to matter nutritionally, and their value is entirely in flavour and in what they let you leave out — mostly salt. The exception to that is herb salt, which is salt first and herbs second, and should be counted as salt. The other thing worth saying is that a dried herb is not a weaker version of a fresh one but a different ingredient: drying concentrates some compounds and drives others off entirely, which is why dried dill tastes almost nothing like fresh dill and dried thyme tastes more like itself.
The ways this goes wrong
- Herbs stored in oil at room temperature. This is the same low-acid, airless hazard as garlic in oil, and the answer is the same: refrigerate and use quickly.
- Drying soft herbs like dill and basil, which end up as green dust with no flavour.
- Drying in sunlight, which bleaches and strips the oils.
- Storing dried herbs above the stove, where heat halves their life.
Safety rules, temperatures, blanching times, headspace and the pH 4.6 line: USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning and the National Center for Home Food Preservation guidance (US Government / land-grant publications, public domain). Acidity classes: the FDA's published approximate-pH tables. Jam composition: Directive 2001/113/EC. Fish freezing before raw or lightly cured use: Regulation (EC) No 853/2004, Annex III. Checked 2026-09-06.
Sources for this food
Frequently asked questions
Should I dry or freeze my herbs?
Dry the woody, low-moisture herbs — thyme, oregano, sage, savory, marjoram. Freeze the soft, wet ones — dill, parsley, chives, basil, coriander. Drying a soft herb produces something with the colour of a herb and the flavour of paper.
Is herb oil safe to make at home?
Only as a refrigerated, short-lived preparation. Herbs and garlic are low-acid, and oil creates the airless environment that Clostridium botulinum needs, so home-made herb and garlic oils belong in the fridge and get used within days rather than stored on a shelf.
When do I cut dill crowns for pickling?
Late July, when the flower head is fully out and just starting to set seed, which in this region coincides almost exactly with the cucumber glut. That is not a coincidence — the pairing is why both are planted.
Related pages
All foods compared
The full table, season by season, with the classic preparation for each.
Nutrition figures
The published USDA row for this food, per 100 grams.
When to sow and harvest it
The sowing calendar entry for this crop in this climate.
From the garden to the log
TempoLife counts the berries you picked and the jam you ate from them, so the season's work shows up where it belongs.