Drying, Chopping, & Storing Fresh Parsley

A few weeks ago I shared a very useful method for preserving parsley by freezing it in "logs". I've since used some of my frozen parsley, and I'm very happy with the turnout. The frozen parsley had a nice strong flavor that added a pleasant kick to my Crowd-Pleasing Italian Meat Sauce. 

I also wanted to try an alternative method for preserving herbs, which is drying them.

Drying herbs takes a significantly longer amount of time to get from start to finish if you're using the traditional air-drying method, which is what I used. (The other option would be to quick-dry the herbs in the oven. I haven't braved that territory yet.)

I used the 'ole "hang your parsley bunch by the string on the kitchen blinds" method.  They added a a touch of style to our kitchen for a couple of weeks.

The first step to preserving any herb is, of course, cleaning the herbs to rid them of any dirt or bugs that have taken up residence on the aromatic leaves. You can see how I clean my herbs here. After cleaning and blotting dry with a paper towel, parsley should be hung upside down. I gathered my stalks into a loose bundle and tied the ends with a plastic hair tie before hanging.

It's also important that the parsley hangs in a mostly humidity-free environment so that it doesn't get moldy.

It's takes about 2-3 weeks for the parsley to dry out completely. Properly dried parsley leaves will appear shriveled and crumbly to the touch. 

Once your parsley is dried, it's time to get to work. 

Use a pair of scissors to trim the leaves off of the stems. You could just as easily pull them off with your fingers.

Once the leaves are removed, place them into an air-tight jar, like a mason jar. You have two options here: (1) store the leaves whole and chop them right before cooking or (2) chop them now and save yourself a step later. The benefit of storing the leaves whole is that you will get more flavor our of the leaves by chopping them right before use.

I wanted to save myself a step later, so I chopped my parsley before storing. 

I've discovered that the fastest and easiest way to chop fresh or dried herbs is by putting a handful of them at a time into the bottom of a glass and using a pair of clean scissors to snip away the leaves until they are minced in appearance.

Once your leaves are all chopped, place them in an air-tight container and store them in a cool, dry place. Dried parsley will maintain it's flavor for over a year if stored properly. 

 

Happy Drying, 

 

Preserving Fresh Parsley

 I'm discovering quickly that fresh herbs can quickly overtake a garden.

 And being quite inexperienced in the fine art of gardening, I've had to do plenty of research to figure out a way to prevent my beloved parsley from going to waste. 

My options seemed to be either freezing of drying

I experimented with the former and have been very pleased with the results. 

Here's a very simple way to preserve fresh parsley.

1. Snip off several stalks of parsley with a pair of scissors, starting from the outside of the plant and working your way in. Cut the stalks close to the ground (about 2 inches).

2. Gather the fresh parsley by the stalks and swish it around in a bowl of clean water to remove all dirt. You may need to use your fingers to remove caked-on dirt from some of the leaves.

(My parsley was pretty dirty!)

3. Separate the stalks and lay them out as flat as possible onto paper towels to let them dry. I let my parsley stalks sit out overnight to make sure they were completely dry.

4. Once the parsley is dry, snip the leaves from the stems with a pair of scissors.

5. Place the parsley leaves into a small plastic baggie, tightly packing them to form a log shape at the bottom of the bag (see picture below).

6. Tightly roll the parsley "log" toward the top of the bag, releasing air as you go. The log should be firm. You'd be surprised how much parsley can fit into such a small space!

7. Seal the plastic baggie and secure it with rubber bands on both ends. Label it so that you can identify it when you're ready to use it. I plan to freeze my cilantro this way to, and I definitely don't want to mistake the two!

8. When you're ready to use the parsley, simply remove the frozen "log" from the baggie and slice it according to your need (see picture below). It doesn't take a big slice to yield an ample amount of parsley. The rest of the parsley can be put back into the baggie and then into the freezer for future use.

(It's very easy to cut into.)

9. Chop parsley to your liking and use it in a delicious recipe!

Enjoy!