Homemade Flavored Salts: Tuscan Herb
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This time of year, I'm rarely out of the kitchen — today it's because I'm busy making homemade flavored salts. This Tuscan-herb one is particularly delicious. If you'd like some inspiration, community, and resources to keep you invested in your kitchen, become a member of my Cooking Community right here.
All the hours laboring from the chilliest of spring days to the hottest of the summer ones have paid off in the form of the harvest. Sweet Lord, the harvest. More often than not, I wander back to the kitchen with baskets full of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cabbages, onions, or herbs with tears of gratitude in my eyes (I'm getting far more hormonal as I age, turns out, and tears come easier than they used to).
The point is simply that sometimes a recipe is more than a recipe, and these homemade flavored salts are actually a way to not only preserve the summer bounty of herbs, but also jar a bit of the gratitude that grows alongside them in the garden.
I'll need to remember that bit of gratitude in February, no doubt.
The basis of homemade flavored salts is quite simple: preserving the herbs in a form that is easily used throughout the year. I find the salts are much easier to utilize and much more inspiring than the dried herbs alone, and find myself grabbing for the salt-filled glass jars that line my pantry cupboards quite often. Plus, the homemade flavored salts turn green, which is simply too charming to resist.
If you'd like, you can easily make these homemade flavored salts with a 2:1 herb-to-salt ratio. I have jars of tarragon salt, garlic salt, thyme salt, chive salt, and bay salt lined up alongside this Tuscan herb salt. Yes, please.
Happy herb harvest!
Homemade Flavored Salts: Tuscan Herb
Ingredients:
2 cups good-quality salt
1 cup sage leaves
1/2 cup rosemary leaves
1/2 cup thyme leaves
Zest of 2 lemons
2 cloves garlic
1 red chili or 1/2 teaspoon chili flakes
Instructions:
Add all of the ingredients into a food processor.
Blend until completely combined, taking the lid off and scraping the salt and herbs around as needed.
Spread the salt mixture on a tray and let it dry at room temperature for three days (or utilize a food dehydrator to speed up the process).
Store in a glass jar.