Mavis Butterfield is an amazing blogger who’s niche is home gardening. He mostly share his expertise on his website One dollar a month.
We have more cilantro than we can use right now {even after giving some away to the neighbors} and so rather than tossing the surplus onto the compost heap, I decided to dehydrate our extra cilantro in the oven last night to use later this winter in homemade soups and casseroles.
If you have never dried cilantro before {or any herbs for that matter} not only are drying herbs SUPER easy to do, but you can save some serious money when you compare the cost of growing herbs and drying them at home vs. what you would have paid for them in the spice section at the grocery store.
After I dry my herbs, I like to store them in small mason jars in the pantry or cupboard. Herbs typically store well for about a year or two {or longer} and the flavor is so much more intense than anything you can get in the stores.
Substituting dried herbs for fresh in recipes is also really easy to do, simply use 1/3 the amount the recipe calls for. So, 1 tbsp. of fresh cilantro would equal about 1 tsp. of dried cilantro.
If you are lucky enough to have access to inexpensive fresh herbs {or just like to pop for fresh herbs in the off season}, you can always add them to recipes that call for dried…just do the exact opposite: add three times the amount of fresh.
I snapped a few photos while I was drying my cilantro for those of you who have never tried this before but want to give it a whirl. Drying herbs really is super simple. And hey, saving money is pretty cool too.
Keep Calm and Garden On.