Drying parsley

I am growing some fabulous bunches of parsley at the moment. The curly leaf and flat leaf variety. But what do you do when you have an abundance. You can only give away and cook with so much, right!

So why not dry your own. I have trialled many methods, from hanging for weeks to rack drying in the sun and shade. It was time consuming and so messy. So can came up with a quick and easy method to dry parsley. It will keep for an age in an airtight container and retains its flavour and colour extremely well.

HINT !
I only complete this when I have a roast in the oven as you will need a hot oven for the final process, so why waste good oven time. Warm a cookie tray in the oven while you are getting your roast ready. Then pop your dinner in and remove the heated cookie tray.

PREPARING :
Cut your parsley at the end of the day when the leaves are dry and free of morning dew. If your leaves are NOT dry then don’t use this method. Storks are great to use as well.

Next, chop your parsley up. Make sure the storks are finely cut. The drier the leaves, the quicker the cut.

Now, spread the chopped parsley out on kitchen paper towel on the heated cookie tray. Leave it on top of your warm oven while your roast is cooking. Your parsley is slowly drying out here.

When your roast is cooked and the oven is OFF, pop the cookie tray with kitchen paper and parsley back in the oven. Now go have your dinner.

When you return pull out your tray. You will feel that the parsley is crispy and very dry. If not, pop back in.

Now your can crush it further or leave as is. But make sure you store in an air tight container. Delicious to use in many recipes.

This method also works brilliantly with rosemary.

Happy garden cooking !