Your Guide To (Easy) Herb Oils
A fun way to infuse flavor and color into any dish—try this easy herb oil recipe with your leftover herbs.
Herb oils are a fun and creative way to elevate any dish. This is the perfect staple recipe for using your leftover herbs. You can use any herb, including parsley, mint, cilantro, tarragon, sage, and thyme—all will work wonderfully.
Elevate any dish with this bright herb oil.
Today we’re making rosemary herb oil. Our garden in Venice has an abundance of rosemary, and I’m never quite sure what to do with it. Besides sending neighbors and friends home with handfuls of rosemary, Meyer lemons and freshly-cut white roses, we still seem to have more than we know what to do with.
One of the abundant rosemary plants in our garden.
Traditional herb oil recipes involve blanching the herbs beforehand. This recipe is simpler than the traditional method, as we have eliminated this step. While these processes do yield a beautiful and shelf stable oil, we can achieve fantastic results with raw herbs (and our secret ingredient for color: spinach).
Fresh rosemary, cleaned and dried.
Easy Herb Oil
Ingredients
1/3 - 1/2 cup fresh rosemary or herb of choice, loosely packed
1 handful fresh spinach (optional)
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
Clean your spinach and fresh herbs and, unless using soft herbs, remove from sprigs. Feel free to leave the stalks for herbs like cilantro and parsley.
Try to get as much water out of the spinach and herbs, making sure they are dry before transferring to the blender.
Add your oil and blend on medium-high for 1-2 minutes. You should see the mixture become smooth and bright green in color (especially if you added the spinach).
Strain the mixture through a chinois or other fine strainer (a Chemex with a steel filter works great as well). The oil may take up to 30 minutes to fully strain.
Once strained, pour oil into a glass container and store in the refrigerator for up to a month. I highly recommend neatly labeling your jars with the type of oil and the date.
Yields: 1 cup | Prep time: 10 min | Level: Easy
Drizzle this beautiful herb oil over any dish for a bright yet subtle flavor infusion, or even to elevate a simple snack.
Rosemary in particular happens to be incredibly healthy in culinary doses, with some individuals adding rosemary sprigs to their morning brew for the neuroprotective qualities. A dollop of rosemary oil in your coffee might be a smoother and more effective way of incorporating this healthy herb.
This is a wonderful way to get more herbs and healthy fats into our diets, and it happens to look gorgeous when plated. From dressings and marinades to using as a topping for soup, pizza, or toast, the uses for herb oils are seemingly endless.
