TRY THIS! Dehydrate your own herbs at home!

I absolutely loved doing this!! I had chives that I cut from my garden before the cold weather came and decided that I wanted to be able to use them throughout the winter.

I cut the dirty ends off of the chives and washed the stalks in cold water. I made sure to dry them well with a paper towel before placing them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Turn the oven on to 170 degrees F. Use a wooden spoon to prop the door open a little bit and allow for air flow and for some of the moisture out of the oven, If you have a convection oven, you can skip this step. Place the baking sheet in the oven and prop the door open with the wooden spoon. Check on and move the herbs around approximately every 20 minutes. The drying process will taking around 2 hours. Once the chives are dried, turn the oven off and leave it to cool.

If you place one of the stems between your fingers and it crumbles, you know that it is done. If it still seems a bit soft, they'll need more drying time.

Once completely dry, chop them into small pieces and store them in clean, dry mason jars or recycled pasta sauce jars. Leave the lid off for the first day to expose them to the air a little longer.

Things to consider when drying herbs:

- Some have more oils that others. The more oil, the longer drying time.

- If they are a bit soft when you take them out of the oven, they need more time back in the oven, to dry.

- Consider the fragrance and taste of each herb that you decide to dry together. One herb might lend it's flavour to the other herb, making it taste off.

- Never use a temperature over 200 degrees F. If your oven doesn't go as low as 170 degrees F, turn it on and get it as close to 170 degrees as possible and then turn it off as you put the baking sheet in the over. Toss the herbs around to see if they're dried thoroughly. If not, repeat the process.

- The faster the herbs dry, the better the flavour will be.

xo

#dehydratedfood #dehydrate #chives #diyherbs #homegrown