If you grow and preserve your own herbs for cooking—or even buy them fresh at the supermarket—here’s a little secret you ought to know: Most culinary herbs retain a lot more of their fresh-from-the-garden flavor when they’re frozen, rather than dried (although, of course, they won’t keep their good looks). There are several easy-as-pie freezing methods. Use whichever one you want, then later just pull out whatever quantity you need to cook with, and put the rest back in the freezer. Here are your culinary choices:

· Wrap up bunches of herb sprigs (one kind per bunch) in aluminum foil.
· Chop fresh herbs, and freeze them in food-storage containers.
· Puree chopped herbs with water, butter, or olive oil. (The exact amount is your call, but roughly 2 parts herbs to 1 part mixer is a good starting point.) Then pour the mixture into ice cube trays. When the cubes are frozen, pop them out of the trays and store them in food-storage containers or freezer bags.