Drying and Saving Herbs, Part 2

A while ago, I posted about how to prep your fresh garden herbs for drying.  This is the second part of that post--what to do when the herbs are dried out.  It's super easy!

Once your herbs are dry and crunchy, like this, they are ready to be ground up!

You'll want to get some supplies: bowl, herb scissors, a stem stripper, and an herb grinder (all pictured) or mortar and pestle, funnel, and glass jars.  The one pictured was a gift from my mother-in-law that she found from Pampered Chef, but you can also find them on Amazon.

Once the herb leaves are crunchy and dry, you'll want to remove them from their stems using an herb stripper tool.  Parsley is easiest, because the leaves are just at the top of the stems.  If you don't have a stripper tool, you can just pick the leaves off by hand or strip the stems by running your finger and thumb down the stem (for woody herbs).

Remove the leaves and keep them together.  I put them in a bowl as I'm plucking.  Once you have enough to run them through your grinder of choice, go ahead and do so!

Once the leaves are ground, I keep them in a labeled glass jar.  I just keep adding to the jar as I continue to dry herbs all summer.

Voila!  You have just made your own dried herbs!  And you know exactly where they came from and how they were grown.  Another bonus is that they are fresh, and the smell and taste so much better than the bottles you buy at the store!