Having an abundance of sage growing in the garden, last week I harvested a few springs and decided that I would make some sage salt. An article on herb salts from the current issue of Magnolia Journal magazine is what prompted the idea. Surprisingly, it had never occurred to me to make my own herb salts ever before, though off and on I’ve had an herb garden growing here at the house. Here is the sage we currently have growing. It’s a whole lot of sage, from three plants. Word to the wise: unless you use a lot of sage, one plant might be enough for a small family. Sage is a hardy perennial in USDA Zones 5-8, so if you are gardening in one of those zones and have a healthy plant growing, you will likely never experience a shortage of leaves to use in the kitchen. That’s what I’m finding anyway.
To get some more ideas and loose instructions, I googled and quickly realized that there are a bunch of ways to make an herb salt. You can use one herb or as many as you like in the recipe. Some say to chop the leaves up right after picking and combine with the salt. Others say to combine the whole leaves and the salt and then chop together in a food processor. I guess the drying process comes after the blending in those cases. I’ve come across methods that call for very lightly baking the mixture after combined.
Since this was my first time making this, I stuck with something easy. After harvesting, I washed the leaves thoroughly, then left them spread out on paper towels to dry. It took just about a week for them to get completely dry.
After they had dried, I combined them with sea salt. I used the following amounts, although I saw many different preferences on the ratio of herb to salt in the many recipes I looked at.
- 1/4 cup loosely packed, dried sage leaves
- 2 tbl course sea salt
Next, I ground the mixture up using a small $10 coffee bean grinder that I already had. Many of the recipes I saw, recommended using a food processor. We have one of those on hand, but with the very small quantity I was making, the coffee grinder seemed the better choice.
After grinding, I tested the salt out on a slice of tomato. I think it came out pretty well. Couple of thoughts: next time I will not grind up the mixture quite so much. It seemed a bit too fine, almost powdery. Also, I’d like to play with the ratio of herb to salt and see how that goes. And, of course, I’d like to try this with some different herb combinations.
I’m storing the mixture in the fridge, just to be on the safe side. I’ve been using it to season my favorite sandwich. Look for that post coming soon – hint: if you like red pepper hummus, you are going to thank me later!
Update – you can now read all about that infamous sandwich, here!
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