Dry Oregano
Oregano has a strong flavor and can be used in numerous recipes, such as pizza sauce, baked chicken and chicken noodle soup. Oregano is a member of the mint family and dries well. If you have plenty of fresh oregano, you may want to dry it and store it for future use.
Contents
Steps
Prepare Fresh Oregano
- Use oregano from your garden.
- Harvest oregano 3 times during the season. Cut fresh oregano leaves with clippers when it is 6 inches (15.24 cm) tall, just before it flowers and in the late summer. This will help the oregano grow tall and strong.
- Put fresh leaves you plan to use right away in plastic bags in the refrigerator. When you prepare oregano for storage, you should use the fresh oregano first, because it has the most flavor.
- Cut entire stalks with clippers at the end of the summer and tie their bases together with a string.
- Prepare oregano from the store.
- Purchase oregano that has vibrant color and no blemishes on the leaves.
- Store the fresh oregano in your refrigerator until you are ready to dry it.
- Tie the stalks together at the base with a string.
Dry Oregano
- Hang the cut stalks upside down in a dry, warm and well-ventilated room. This may take up a lot of space, but when you prepare oregano, the yield is much smaller than the initial hanging stalks.
- Let the stalks hang for a week. It takes plenty of time to completely dry oregano, but this method will bring out the full flavor of the oregano.
- Process the oregano stalks.
- Separate the flowers from the leaves. When you prepare oregano for storage, you want to harvest the leaves and flowers separately.
- Strip the leaves from the stalk by running your hand up and down the branch. It's best to have a clean counter space, because the dry oregano leaves will fall off in a pile.
- Collect the leaves and crumple them up with your fingers to make them powdery.
- Push the dry oregano onto a piece of paper, and use the paper as a funnel to pour the herb into airtight jars.
- Discard stalks in the compost pile, if you have one, or throw them away in the garbage.
Quick Drying Method
- Turn your oven on to low and then cut off the fresh oregano leaves from the stalks with scissors or pull them off with your fingers. This method works well if you don't have a lot of time, but you may lose some of the flavor of the herb.
- Spread the leaves evenly on a non-greased cookie sheet.
- Place the cookie sheet in the oven. Check the fresh oregano every 5 minutes until they are dried.
- Take the cookie sheet out of the oven, and let it cool. Crumble the dry oregano with your fingers onto a piece of paper. Pour the processed herb into an airtight jar for storage.
Tips
- Try using dry oregano in your favorite recipes. You may add it to sauces, fish, poultry, and Mexican, Italian and Greek food.
- Try using the oregano flowers for decoration. Dry flowers will last up to a year.
- You can use dried flowers in satchels.
- Herbs such as dry oregano may make great additions to gift baskets.
Things You'll Need
- Fresh oregano
- Clippers
- String
- Dry, warm and well-ventilated room
- Paper
- Airtight jars
- Scissors
- Cookie sheet
- Oven
