Category: Culinary Herbs

Thyme: Pungent and Earthy

Posted on by M.

What is Thyme?

growing thyme plant in blue container

Meet thyme: the humble, mighty herb that is the secret backbone of so many beloved dishes. Though its leaves are small, their flavor is profound. It offers a warm, earthy essence with hints of mint and a touch of lemon. Unlike more delicate herbs, thyme’s bold character only deepens with cooking. This makes it the perfect companion for long, slow simmers and hearty roasts. It’s a resilient perennial. It offers its fragrant leaves year after year with minimal fuss. These leaves bring reliable, comforting flavors to your table.

What dishes is it best in?

Thyme is a foundational herb that adds a layer of warm, earthy complexity to a wide range of dishes. Its robust flavor holds up beautifully to long cooking times, making it a star in slow-simmered recipes.

  • Hearty Soups & Stews: A few sprigs are essential for building the deep, savory base of beef stew, chicken noodle soup, French onion soup, and creamy clam chowder.
  • Roasted Meats & Poultry: It’s a classic partner for roast chicken, turkey, lamb, and pork. Tuck sprigs under the skin or scatter them in the pan for incredible aroma and flavor.
  • Braises & Slow-Cooked dishes: The long, slow cooking process fully infuses the dish with thyme’s essence. It’s perfect for coq au vin, braised short ribs, and pot roasts.
  • Vegetable Sides: Elevate simple vegetables by roasting or sautéing them with thyme. It’s especially good with roasted potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and tomatoes.
  • Marinades & Sauces: Its earthy notes are fantastic in marinades for grilled meats and in pan sauces and gravies.

Flavor Profiles

This is a robust herb that can stand up to long cooking times, making it a cornerstone of slow-cooked dishes and hearty cuisines.

  • Flavor: Earthy, slightly floral, with notes of mint and lemon.
  • Culinary Partners: It’s famously best friends with rosemary, sage, garlic, lemon, tomatoes, olives, and mushrooms.
  • How to Use:
    • Whole Sprigs: Add to soups, stews, and braises (the leaves fall off during cooking; remove the stems before serving).
    • Chopped Leaves: Use in marinades, roasted vegetables, compound butters, and bread.
  • Classic Pairings: Roasted chicken, beef stew, clam chowder, bean dishes, roasted potatoes, and tomato-based sauces.

How Preparation Changes its Flavor

It is also a resilient herb, but how you handle it does impact its final flavor in a dish.

  • Fresh vs. Dried: The fresh version offers a brighter, more complex flavor with its subtle lemon and mint notes at the forefront. Dried, however, has a more concentrated, earthy, and slightly woodier taste. Because drying intensifies the flavor, use about one-third the amount of dried when substituting for fresh. For example, if a recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of fresh, use 1 teaspoon of dried.
  • Whole Sprigs vs. Chopped Leaves: Cooking it on the stem (in sprigs) is ideal for long simmers and braises. The leaves will naturally fall off during cooking, and you can easily remove the woody stem before serving. This provides a gentle, infused flavor. Chopped fresh leaves are best for dishes with shorter cooking times (like sautés or marinades) where you want its flavor to be more immediately present and evenly distributed.
  • The Impact of Heat: Thyme is unique because its flavor doesn’t diminish with cooking; it blossoms and deepens. Adding it early in the cooking process allows its earthy essence to fully meld with and enhance the other ingredients.

A Note on Varieties:

While you’ll most commonly find Common Thyme at the garden center, several other delightful varieties offer subtle twists for your cooking and gardening.

Creeping: This is primarily a ground cover ornamental plant. While it is edible, its flavor is much milder than common thyme. It’s best used as a beautiful garnish rather than a primary culinary herb.For most kitchen gardens and recipes, Common Thyme is the versatile, go-to choice.

Lemon: This is the most popular culinary variety after common thyme. It has a pronounced citrus aroma and flavor that is fantastic with chicken, fish, and in vinaigrettes.

Caraway: As the name suggests, this variety has a distinct scent and flavor of caraway. It’s traditionally used to season lamb.

For most kitchen gardens and recipes, the Common variety is the most versatile, go-to choice.

Simple Growing Tips

  • Thyme is a wonderfully low-maintenance perennial herb, perfect for beginners and seasoned gardeners alike.
  • Sun: Thrives in full sun.
  • Water: Drought-tolerant once established. Prefers well-draining soil and is susceptible to root rot if overwatered.
  • Garden or Container: Does well in both garden beds and containers.
  • Harvesting: Simply snip off a few inches of the stem as needed. It will grow back bushier.

My Favorite Recipes Using Thyme

Rosemary: Piney and Bold

Posted on by M.

What is Rosemary?

closeup of rosemary sprig growing on rosemary bush in background

Rosemary is a robust, woody herb with a powerful aroma of pine and camphor, capable of standing up to long cooking times. Unlike delicate herbs, its needle-like leaves release a pungent, earthy flavor that is essential for seasoning roasted meats like lamb and chicken, root vegetables, and hearty stews. To harness its full potential, it is typically added at the beginning of the cooking process, often as a whole sprig that is removed before serving, allowing its bold, savory character to deeply infuse the dish without becoming overpowering.

What dishes is it best in?

Rosemary is a powerful, woody, aromatic herb that is best used in dishes that can stand up to its bold flavor and withstand longer cooking times. It’s not a delicate finishing herb like basil.

  • Roasted Meats: This is rosemary’s classic domain. Its robust flavor penetrates and complements fatty, rich meats. It is exceptional with lamb (rack of lamb, leg of lamb), roast chicken (whole bird or pieces), pork (especially roast loin or chops), and duck. It’s a key component in many marinades and rubs.
  • Hearty Stews and Braises: Its woody stems hold up beautifully in long, slow-cooked dishes like beef stew, osso buco, or braised short ribs. A whole sprig is often added to the pot and removed before serving.
  • Root Vegetables: Rosemary and roasted vegetables are a match made in heaven. Toss potatoes, carrots, parsnips, or sweet potatoes in olive oil and chopped rosemary before roasting.
  • Breads and Focaccia: Finely chopped rosemary is famously baked into focaccia bread and is also wonderful in savory scones, biscotti, and cracker dough.
  • Soups and Sauces: It adds depth to bean soups (like white bean or lentil), tomato-based sauces, and gravies. Remember, a little goes a long way.
  • Infused Oils and Vinegars: Steeping rosemary in olive oil or vinegar imparts its distinct piney flavor, perfect for salad dressings or bread dipping.

Pro Tip: To get the most flavor out of fresh rosemary without getting tough, needle-like pieces in your food, use one of these methods:

    • Strip the leaves from the stem and finely chop them.
    • Leave a sprig whole and add it to a braise or roast, then remove the intact sprig before serving.
    • Use the stem as a skewer for kebabs (soak it in water first), which will impart a subtle flavor.

Flavor Profiles

The flavor profile of rosemary is bold, complex, and unmistakably pungent.

  • Woody and Piney: This is its most dominant characteristic. It tastes like a fragrant evergreen forest, which comes from its high concentration of aromatic oils.
  • Peppery and Bitter: It has a sharp, slightly peppery kick and a pleasant, lingering bitterness that helps cut through richness.
  • Earthy and Lavender-like: Underneath the pine notes, there’s a distinct earthy, floral quality reminiscent of lavender (they are botanical cousins).
  • Lemony and Camphorous: Some varieties have a subtle, fresh lemony undertone, and all rosemary has a slight medicinal cooling sensation, similar to eucalyptus.

How Preparation Changes its Flavor

  • Fresh: This has the most vibrant and complex flavor, with all its pine, citrus, and floral notes present. The needles are quite tough and need to be finely chopped or crushed to release their oils.
  • Dried: Dried rosemary retains its woody, piney character but loses its subtle citrus and floral top notes. It becomes even more potent and concentrated. The needles become very tough and spiky; it’s often best to crush them in a mortar and pestle or use a tea infuser ball if adding whole to a stew.
  • Cooked: Unlike delicate herbs, its bold flavor stands up exceptionally well to heat. Long, slow cooking (like braising or roasting) mellows its sharpness and allows its earthy, savory qualities to meld beautifully into the dish. It is almost always added at the beginning of the cooking process.

A Note on Varieties:

The main takeaway: While you can successfully use any culinary rosemary variety in cooking, if you have a choice, ‘Tuscan Blue’ and ‘Spice Islands’ will give you the most powerful, classic rosemary flavor. For a milder, more citrus-forward experience, seek out ‘Arp’.

Simple Growing Tips

  • If you haven’t noticed that the summers are hotter lately, you might be in denial or just indoors all the time. I say that because in prior years, I was able to successfully keep a rosemary plant alive on my back patio, despite the insane amount of direct sunlight it receives. This year, it baked my rosemary plant to death by mid-summer. Believe me, it is almost impossible to kill rosemary, in my experience.
  • Honestly, my current patio pot contains what used to be the ends of 4 green onions I bought from my local farmer’s market. They were a little larger than the grocery store option, to be fair. I used every bit of those onions and then just buried the root parts with about an inch of the stalk attached. All winter, they flourished in very little light and freezing temperatures. I only brought them in on the below 20* nights. They proceeded to survive the blistering summer heat and direct lava-sun better than my rosemary plant, which was torched for the first time ever. I’m not sure if these green onions are related to Hulk, but I would not doubt it.

My Favorite Recipes Using Rosemary

Green Onions: A Versatile Herb

Posted on by M.

What are Green Onions?

green onions with roots in focus against a wooden cutting board

Green onions, also known as scallions or spring onions, are the young, tender shoots of the onion plant, harvested before the bulb has fully developed. They offer a much milder, fresher, and sweeter flavor than their mature onion counterparts, making them a perfect garnish and ingredient for adding a gentle oniony kick without overpowering a dish.

What dishes are they best in?

Their mildness and crisp texture make them incredibly versatile. They are primarily a finishing herb, used raw or added at the very end of cooking.

  • Garnishes: The classic finish for soups, baked potatoes, tacos, ramen, and stir-fries.
  • Salads & Salsas: Provides a crunchy, mild onion flavor in fresh preparations like pico de gallo.
  • Eggs: A fantastic addition to omelets, scrambles, and frittatas.
  • Dips & Spreads: Mixed into sour cream, Greek yogurt, or cream cheese for a fresh flavor boost.
  • Quick Topping: Chopped and sprinkled over virtually any savory dish for a hit of fresh flavor and color.

Flavor Profiles

  • White and Light Green Parts: Offer a crisp, juicy texture with a mild, sweet onion flavor. They are slightly more pungent than the greens.
  • Dark Green Parts: Have a more grassy, herb-like flavor and are best used thinly sliced.

How Preparation Changes its Flavor

  • Raw: Provides the brightest, freshest flavor and a pleasant crisp crunch.
  • Lightly Cooked: When added at the very end of cooking (e.g., stirred into a stir-fry off the heat), they wilt slightly and become sweeter while retaining some texture.
  • Caramelized: If you slowly cook the white parts, they will become sweet and tender, losing their sharpness entirely.

A Note on Varieties

  • Scallions: True scallions have a long, straight white stem without a visible bulb.
  • Spring Onions: These are young onions harvested slightly later than scallions. They have a more pronounced, rounder bulb at the end and a slightly stronger flavor.
  • For home cooking, the terms are often used interchangeably, and both work beautifully.

Simple Growing Tips

  • The Easiest Herb to “Regrow”: Place the white root ends (with about an inch of the stalk) in a small glass of water on a windowsill. Change the water every few days, and you’ll see new green shoots grow in less than a week! You can then plant them in soil or just harvest from the water.
    • Honestly, my current patio pot contains what used to be the ends of 4 green onions I bought from my local farmer’s market. They were a little larger than the grocery store option, to be fair. I used every bit of those onions and then just buried the root parts with about an inch of the stalk attached. All winter, they flourished in very little light and freezing temperatures. I only brought them in on the below 20* nights. They proceeded to survive the blistering summer heat and direct lava-sun better than my rosemary plant, which was torched for the first time ever. I’m not sure if these green onions are related to Hulk, but I would not doubt it.
  • Sun: Prefers full sun but will tolerate partial shade.
  • Water: Keep soil consistently moist.
    • Perhaps this is a best practice, but personally, I have by turns drowned and subjected my onions to desert-like conditions. They didn’t particularly enjoy the desert section, but they didn’t give up the ghost, either.
  • Harvesting: You can begin harvesting the green tops when they are about 6 inches tall. Snip from the outer leaves, and the plant will continue to produce from the center.

My Favorite Recipes Using Green Onions

Cilantro: The Essential Herb for Fresh Flavors

Posted on by M.

What is Cilantro?

Fresh cilantro herb in forefront with bright light behind

Cilantro (also known as coriander leaf or Chinese parsley) is a bright, pungent herb with delicate, lacy leaves. It’s a cornerstone of Mexican, Latin American, and Southeast Asian cuisines. A fun fact: the seeds of the plant are called coriander, which have a warm, citrusy flavor completely different from the fresh leaves.

What dishes is it Best in?

fresh cilantro garnishes homemade corn flour tortillas with pico de gallo, spicy broiled corn and pinto beans.

Cilantro’s fresh, citrusy punch is a finishing herb, best added at the end of cooking to preserve its delicate flavor. It’s a non-negotiable ingredient in:

  • Fresh Salsas & Salads: Like Pico de Gallo, mango salad, or ceviche.
  • Vietnamese & Thai Dishes: It’s a key garnish for pho, spring rolls, and curries.
  • Tacos & Burrito Bowls: A handful of fresh leaves adds a necessary bright note.
  • Herb Sauces & Chutneys: Like chimichurri or Indian chutneys.
  • Garnishes: Sprinkled over tacos, grilled meats, or soups just before serving.

Flavor Profiles

  • Fresh Leaves: Bright, citrusy (like a mix of lemon and parsley), with a slightly peppery note. For some people, it has a soapy taste due to a genetic trait.
  • Dried: Loses almost all its flavor. Not recommended. There is no good dried substitute for fresh cilantro.
  • Coriander Seeds: The dried seeds have a warm, sweet, citrusy, and slightly floral flavor, completely different from the leaf.

How Preparation Changes Its Flavor

  • Fresh & Raw: Provides the strongest, most vibrant citrusy flavor and aroma. This is how it’s meant to be used.
  • Heated/Cooked: Heat rapidly diminishes its flavor. It wilts quickly and loses its bright notes, becoming more muted and earthy. Always add it as a final garnish.

A Note on Varieties

  • Standard: This is the most common variety found in grocery stores and garden centers.
  • Slow-Bolt: A gardener’s best friend! This variety is bred to withstand warmer temperatures for longer before “bolting” (flowering and going to seed), giving you a longer harvest window for leaves.
  • Vietnamese Rau Ram: Often called Vietnamese cilantro, it’s not a true cilantro but has a similar strong, pungent flavor and is used in Southeast Asian cooking.

Simple Growing Tips

  • Sun: Prefers cool weather and full sun to partial shade. In hot climates, it will quickly “bolt” (flower and set seed), ending the leaf production.
  • Water: Keep soil consistently moist but not waterlogged.
  • The Bolting Challenge: This is cilantro’s quirk. Once summer heat arrives, it will bolt. To ensure a continuous harvest, plant new seeds every 2-3 weeks in the spring and fall (“succession planting”).
  • Harvesting: Snip outer leaves from the base of the plant first, allowing the center to continue growing.

My Favorite Recipes Using Fresh Cilantro

Fresh Basil: An Essential Guide

Posted on by M.

What is Basil?

young basil plants growing in a container

Basil is the vibrant, aromatic soul of many summer dishes. Its sweet, slightly peppery flavor with hints of mint and anise is most potent when fresh, making it a perfect finishing herb. It is famously the heart of Italian pesto and essential for topping a caprese salad or a margherita pizza. To preserve its delicate essence, it’s best added at the end of the cooking process; a quick chiffonade of leaves stirred into a pasta sauce or sprinkled over a soup just before serving releases its incredible fragrance and bright flavor.

As a general rule, I do not recommend adding fresh basil to a dish while cooking, because the heat often negates the freshness and vibrancy it can add to a dish. There are some varieties that develop delicious earthy notes when cooked. However, you can almost always add any variety of fresh basil to salads or finished dishes for a pop of flavor!

What dishes is it Best in?

Fresh caprese salad with sliced tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil with balsamic reduction

Basil is incredibly versatile, but it truly shines in a few classic categories:

  • Italian Cuisine: This is basil’s most famous domain. It is the key ingredient in pesto Genovese (the classic basil, pine nut, garlic, and Parmesan sauce). It is essential on caprese salad (with tomatoes and fresh mozzarella), Margherita pizza, and countless pasta sauces (like a simple tomato-basil sauce).
  • Southeast Asian Cuisine: Specifically, Thai basil (which has a more anise-like, spicy flavor) is a staple. It is used in stir-fries like Pad Krapow (a spicy basil chicken or pork dish) and curries, but my favorite use is to add it as a fresh garnish to a bowl of Vietnamese pho.
  • Salads and Dressings: Its fresh, sweet flavor brightens up green salads, grain salads (like quinoa or farro), and is muddled into vinaigrettes.
  • Summer Beverages: It pairs wonderfully with fruits like lemon, strawberry, and watermelon. It’s muddled in cocktails (like a gin basil smash), infused in lemonade, or simply added to water for a refreshing twist.
  • Soups and Stews: A handful of torn basil leaves stirred into tomato soup, minestrone, or a vegetable stew right before serving elevates the entire dish with freshness.

Pro Tip: To get the most flavor out of basil, tear it with your hands rather than chopping it with a knife. The metal of the blade can bruise and blacken the delicate leaves more quickly. Always add it at the end of the cooking process to preserve its bright color and complex aroma.

Flavor Profiles

  • Sweet and Peppery: The most immediate taste is a gentle sweetness followed by a subtle, warm peppery kick, similar to a mild arugula. 
  • Herbaceous and Anise-like: It has a strong, green, “herbaceous” quality with a distinct undertone of anise or licorice, which is more pronounced in some varieties than others.
  • Minty: This is a key characteristic, as basil is a member of the mint family (Lamiaceae). You can detect a cool, fresh mintiness, especially in the aroma.
  • Earthy and Clove-like: Some varieties, particularly when cooked, can develop warm, earthy notes with a hint of clove.

How Preparation Changes Its Flavor

  • Fresh: When fresh, basil is at its brightest and most complex. All the notes—sweet, peppery, minty, and anise—are present and vibrant. It is highly aromatic.
  • Cooked: When heated, basil loses its top notes very quickly. The bright, minty-anise flavors fade, and it develops a deeper, more savory, and slightly earthy flavor. This is why it’s often used as a garnish after cooking to preserve its fresh character.
  • Dried: Dried basil has a much more subdued and different flavor. It loses almost all its sweetness and complexity, leaving behind a primarily earthy, hay-like, and slightly minty taste. It is a poor substitute for fresh basil but can be used in long-simmered sauces where its subtle earthiness can blend in.

A Note on Varieties

The flavor can also change dramatically between types of basil:

  • Sweet Genovese Basil (most common): This one follows the first flavor profile above and is usually the one you will find in the ‘living herbs’ or produce sections of grocery stores in the U.S. Because it is easily available, it tends to be my go-to.
  • Thai Basil: I love the stronger anise/licorice flavor and spicier kick that this variety claims. I usually do not care for anise or licorice, but there is something about this kind of basil that works perfectly in certain dishes. It holds up much better to heat and when added to a steaming bowl of pho, it is absolutely divine. I had no idea that fresh basil could be so delicious in a hot broth until I was served my first bowl. My life has never been the same.
  • Lemon Basil: Has a pronounced citrusy, lemony aroma and flavor. At some point, you will stumble upon my ravings over all things lemon, so suffice it to say that I am just as fond of this type of basil as I am of lemon-grass and other ‘lemony’ flavors.
  • Holy Basil (Tulsi): Has a spicy, clove-like flavor with a peppery heat. What more need we say? The gods themselves have deemed this basil worthy.

In summary, think of fresh basil as a sweet, aromatic, and peppery herb with layers of mint and anise that brightens and defines a dish. Its flavor is delicate and best enjoyed fresh!

Simple Growing Tips

using a watering can to water basil plants in a green container

If you haven’t noticed that the summers are hotter lately, you might be in denial or just indoors all the time. I say that because in prior years, I was able to successfully keep a basil plant alive on my back patio, despite the insane amount of direct sunlight it receives. This is probably due to the fact that basil plants thrive on at least 6 hours of full sun per day. However, I don’t think our current blistering heat from the giant magma ball is the same thing as ‘full sunlight’ anymore. This year, it even baked my rosemary plant to death by mid-summer. Believe me, it is almost impossible to kill rosemary, in my experience.

All that said, generally, basil is a pretty forgiving plant as long as you:

  • Don’t water the leaves in direct sunlight. This can basically cause the water to ‘boil’ on the surface of the leaf, and growing basil leaves do not appreciate it.
  • Allow the plant plenty of sunlight (or direct light from an indoor growing lamp or equivalent) but keep an eye on it if its outside in the blazing sun these days. Try to make sure you have a brightly lit area that is also not a potential inferno.
  • Make sure you keep that soil nutrient dense (use plant food or some amazing compost regularly).
  • Keep the plant well hydrated but don’t drown it. When the soil stops absorbing the moisture completely, you should give it a break. 

My Favorite Recipes Using Fresh Basil