Food Tips & Info > Herbs and SpicesAugust 05, 2009

Here is a new way to preserve basil from the garden for winter use without drying it. You can not freeze basil by itself because it will turn black in the freezer. You can process a lot of basil this way.

I take the basil and put it in the processor with olive oil and chop fine, just enough olive oil to coat the basil and make chopping easy. It will be pesto consistency but larger pieces. When finished chopping, take teaspoon fulls and put in to a ice cube tray and freeze.

When they are frozen, pop out and put in a Ziploc bags and take out one cube at a time. You can use it in sauces, dips, pesto, any recipe because olive oil and basil work well in all of them. Just keep the olive oil down to a minimum. Because of the concentrated amount of basil, one cube will do the average recipe and the olive oil will blend and melt.

I have 1 1/2 cup Black and Decker chopper and I chop and add basil until it's full. I probably use approx a 1/4 cup of olive oil and 6 to 7 large handfuls of basil. As it chops, I just keep stuffing a little more in and before you know it, you're done.

Source: I discovered this on my own

By Cheecky from Whiting, VT

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