You may not be growing fresh herbs yet, but if you hit the grocery store to pick some up, use a few and have some left over, don’t just toss them back in the fridge. Bon Appetit has a ton of uses for them, including herbed simple syrups for cocktails or pastries, supercharged salad dressings and infused oils.
Photo by Karen.
Whether you grow your own or you just bought too many from the store, you can dry them for later, or you can use them up before they go all brown and gross. I prefer the “use them while they’re fresh” approach, and when I just can’t sneak fresh herbs in any more cooked meals, I’ll turn to these for help. A few suggestions from the article below:
Cook a Simple Syrup
Add a big handful of fresh herbs to a basic mixture of equal parts sugar and water, bring to a boil, stir, and then remove from the heat. Once completely cooled, strain out the herbs (discard), and use the simple syrup to sweeten iced coffee and tea, cocktails, and anything else your heart desires. Mint works well in a simple syrup, and we especially like rosemary syrup in our lattes — it’s an unexpected savoury-sweet twist.
Add Them to Pancakes and Fritters
Fried foods need something fresh and green to bring them back from gut-bomb status. A shower of chopped fresh herbs over fried croquettes will do wonders (so will a pinch of sea salt and a squeeze of citrus juice). Also excellent? Adding chopped herbs right into the batter.
Make a Compound Butter
Finely chopped herbs easily mix into room-temperature butter, which can then be spread on bread, added to a fat steak as it rests, used to gussy up grilled clams, or used for cooking. Bonus: It freezes!
The compound butter one is my favourite, and one I actually use often. The suggestions don’t stop there, either — there are 12 in all, and we just highlighted three we think are particularly uncommon but sounded delicious. For the others, hit the link below.
What to Do With an Excess of Fresh Herbs [Bon Appetit]
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