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Don’t let your basil go to waste! Find out how to make the most of your garden’s bounty with delicious infused oils, cubes and unique varieties of this versatile herb.
Enjoy Fresh Home Grown Basil Pesto Year-Round
Are you faced with too much basil in your garden and unsure what to do with it?
Last year, when we planted fresh basil, we struggled to get enough even to make a few tomato salads.
It was kind of pathetic, really, since we were hoping for a massive crop since we love it.
We use basil in almost anything we cook to jazz up the flavor, like pasta, salads, dips, meat potatoes, etc.
Basil in oil is beautiful; if you haven’t tried it, you are missing out on some incredible flavors.
You can get many varities for example, lemon and chocolate-basil plants are delicious.
You can easily grow a garden in a small space, including herbs.
All you need are small pots to get your seeds going, and before you know it, you will have more basil than you know what to do with.
It’s not as lucrative of a herb as mint that grows like a weed, but with some love and care, this plant will grow in abundance for you, depending on where you live.
Pairing basil and garlic with extra virgin olive oil is like a match made in heaven.
If you enjoy the freshest ingredients on your dinner plate, it doesn’t get any fresher than this.
Another idea we had was to make basil oil.
We mixed fresh basil leaves into a good quality cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil and let the flavors marry.
Can basil be frozen?
Good Question but it comes out wet and wasn’t the best for us.
Since freezing basil on its own didn’t turn out for us, we needed a plan b.
Planting Basil
This year, we purchased 4 packages of Italian Basil from the Dollar Store at 2/$1.00 for a decent amount of seeds.
You can’t go wrong at that price so we made sure we got enough to spread all over our 2 large planters.
Once planted, we watered them daily and kept them outside on the deck, where they received direct sun for 80% of the day.
In the evening, we would give them each a can of water and make sure they were well-moist.
In just over two months, the basil has grown so much that we are in awe.
I don’t think we expected to see as much basil as we have in comparison to last year’s crop.
Since we don’t like to waste food we wanted to come up with ideas to use up this basil..
To buy fresh herbs out of season at the grocery store can run you a few dollars.
Besides growing and harvesting basil is fairly easy in Canada’s summer months.
If you want to buy a small handful of fresh basil in the shop, it costs around $1.99.
There is no way we were letting all of this amazing basil go to the compost heap.
Ultimately, we will begin drying basil on newspaper in our basement, crunch it up, and put it in spice jars.
How To Dehydrate Basil In A Dehydrator
If you have a dehydrator, it’s even easier to dry basil and store it in spice jars.
Place the basil on sheets in your dehydrator so they don’t fall through open grates.
I have washable dehydrator sheets that I bought from Amazon Canada.
Turn the dehydrator onto the lowest setting and let it go for 12-24 hours.
You’re all set to go if you have a herb button on your machine.
Once in a while check in on the basil to see if it is crispy enough to crunch.
Depending on your dehydrator and the moisture in the basil times may differ.
Related: Common Spices To Have In Your Kitchen
We have a variety of spices in labelled mason jars in our cupboard and use spices in almost every dish we cook.
Garlic and Basil Pesto
Since purchasing a KitchenAid food processor (love it) earlier this year, we have been thrilled to see what we could whip up.
As we got to work, we decided to see if we could purée our basil with garlic and olive oil.
If the crop was successful, we would freeze it to use over the Canadian winter in our recipes.
We chose to try our idea out, and it worked perfectly, and they popped up quickly when frozen.
It’s essentially a frozen pesto but one you can use all year long created from herbs from your garden.
We made a few trays but realized we could do it another way that wasn’t so tedious.
The magic happened when we filled muffin tins with our garlic basil; whatever you want to call it, we call it yum.
We especially like it on top of some fresh homemade kalamata olive bread, olive pita bread, or dip our garlic onion potato balls in the dressing before we freeze it.
Once you pop the mixture from the muffin tin by running a butter knife around you can quickly freeze them as disks.
We store the frozen cubes in Ziploc freezer bags for the winter.
This is such an easy process, and if you have a food processor and love your fresh herbs, go ahead and blend them up.
Related: Roasted Tomato Basil Soup
We have frozen the basil cubes in our freezer for about one year.
The best part is that our favorite recipes use our fresh basil all year.
Related: Basil Pesto Cheese Biscuits
How To Make Basil Cubes In A Muffin Tin
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Process Time: Freeze for about 2-3 hours or until frozen
Tools Needed
- Bowl
- Spatula
- Food Processor
- Muffin tin or Silicone muffin tin
Ingredients
- 8 cups of fresh basil
- 6 cloves of organic garlic or 2 cups of fresh garlic scapes
- 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Cooking spray
What is Basil Pesto?
It’s essentially a mix of herbs, olive oil, garlic, nuts, and cheese in our house, but sometimes we like to keep it simple and omit the nuts and cheese.
This is what we have here today with this basil garlic dressing, but you can turn it into a pesto very easily.
**Note** You can also add pine nuts, walnuts, almonds, and Parmigiano-Reggiano if you want to make this a pesto.
- Put all ingredients in the food processor and whiz until it comes together.
- Add more olive oil if needed until it comes with an oatmeal consistency.
- Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray and spoon the mixture into each cup.
- Cover it with plastic wrap and put it into the freezer.
- Once frozen run a plastic knife around the edges and pop the basil disk out.
There you have it, a fresh basil disk ready to go into the freezer for future use.
I don’t know how long these will last in the freezer as this is the first year I’ve made them.
Update 2013: We’ve used these all year long and have had no problems with them so far.
I’m expecting they will last for a while but, in our house, we use so much of it that it will be gone before we know it.
Update 2015: We make the basil cubes every year and we can safely say they’ve kept well for a year in the freezer without loss of flavour.
How To Make Fresh Basil Cubes
Don’t let your basil go to waste! Find out how to make the most of your garden’s bounty with delicious basil-infused oils, cubes, and unique varieties of this versatile herb.
Ingredients
- 8 cups of fresh basil
- 6 cloves of organic garlic or 2 cups of fresh garlic scapes
- 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Cooking spray
Instructions
- Put all ingredients in the food processor and whiz until it comes together.
- Add more olive oil if needed until it comes with an oatmeal consistency.
- Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray and spoon the mixture into each cup.
- Cover it with plastic wrap and put it into the freezer.
- Once frozen, run a plastic knife around the edges and pop the basil disk out.
Basil Garlic Pesto with Baby Shrimp and Mushrooms
- Boil 1 500g package of Pasta al dente
- Add 1.5 cups of Basil Pesto (make as above in processor, but add 1 cup of raw almonds, 1/2 cup fresh Italian Parsley, and 1/2 cup of Parmigiano Reggiano *Note you may need to add a bit more extra virgin olive oil as it purées.
- In a separate frying pan, sauté the mushrooms and baby shrimp with one tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper
- When the pasta is done set aside one cup of pasta water
- Add 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
- Add the pesto to the pasta and stir in pasta water a little at a time to help it all come together. *Note– you may not need all the water
- Top with your favorite cheese, and enjoy!
If you have friends who love basil, you could also fill jars and give them away as homemade gifts at Christmas.
The possibilities are endless.
Mr.CBB
ok I am doing this….my basil isn t looking as good as yours.
Ha, to be honest ours just went kaboom! It works out great and I’ve used the cubes in my minestrone that I made last week and the flavour was out of this world! Let me know how you make out. Mr.CBB
What a great idea! I will definitely use this when I do my garden next year. Last night’s dinner had me drooling, it sounded so good!
It was a good dinner and tasted so fresh. I love it! Super healthy! Let me know how you make out when you do try it. It’s a great way to preserve the basil besides drying in. Mr.CBB
This is brilliant! Thank you for the idea. I don’t have a ton of basil but a massive overgrowth of dill. Any idea what I should do with that? 🙂
I reckon you could do the same, clean it and toss it in the processor with some olive oil and salt,and whiz it up. Then put it in the muffin tin and freeze. The best way is to try like we did but I imagine it would work no problem. It’s super handy, just to pop them into a pot or frying pan! Let me know how you make out. Mr.CBB
I need to buy a processor so I can have homemade pesto–I love it but I know that I can make it a lot cheaper and in bulk if I have the processor.
We bought the processor early this year and it was worth it. We use it for so much such as many types of dips and sauces and now the cubes. Let me know how you make out.Cheers Mr.CBB
Great Idea! My solution last year required too much room in the freezer.
What was your solution last year?
Nice idea with the freezing, although if you’re not sick of pasta sauce yet, this sauce (http://35aweek.com/2012/04/26/bacon-and-tomato-cream-sauce-for-pasta-2-70/) is great with tons of fresh basil leaves in it. You could also make a lemon-basil sugar that keeps for a while: just grind a small handful of leaves in a food processor with 1/2 cup sugar and about a teaspoon of lemon zest—it’s great on desserts, and with berries and/or yogurt. And, of course, nothing beats a light lunch or appetizer of sliced fresh tomato, some basil, some mozzarella, and a drizzle of olive oil!
Oh, I love the sugar idea, I’m going to try that out tomorrow. I love plain yogurt and that would go perfect on top. We eat lots of pasta so we use tonnes of basil in it. I have a tomato,chick pea, fennel with fresh basil salad that we eat often. Our crop of tomatoes will be huge this year so that will be a daily eat. Cheers for the recipe I’ll go give it a look now. Mr.CBB
very impressive! you can’t go wrong with too much basil. we just found out there is a wild basil growing just about everywhere around us, and replanted them in the garden. The taste is good and it is used to the weird tropical weather (too much rain, too much sun) whereas the basil we brought from the capital city, a colder climate, is having a hard time rooting. I hope I have so much I can freeze, at the moment I go out every time we make pizza or pasta to pick up a little bit.
I’ve never had a wild basil that’s awesome.. so it tastes the same? Basil is my all time favourite fresh herb and that’s why we grow so much….
it tastes pretty much the same, a bit more acid, delicious when cut or chopped but didn’t do well in the blender, I guess the acidity comes from the branches and I didn’t cut the leaves properly. still in testing phase!
that’s so funny, I can almost imagine you in the “TEST” kitchen with your basil… lol…
This is an excellent idea. I was wondering what we’d do with excess basil if we did grow it b/c I know we won’t probably use it fast enough. And I’m glad you told us where you got the seeds from. Dollar Store!! Who knew! We love cilantro b/c basil is so hard to find here, expensive, and it keeps for such a short time but if we grew it ourselves, it would always be fresh & inexpensive. I don’t know if I love the smell or the taste of the herbs more. Do you have any good tips for storing fresh basil once its been cut?? I know it doesn’t do well in the fridge but then again it doesn’t do well on the counter in a bag either. Maybe outside of a bag but where??? Thanks again Mr. CBB!
Hi,
If I have excess basil I just lay it all out to dry then crunch it up and put in a jar as a dry herb. You could also tie it all together and hang it to dry. We’ve ordered seeds on Ebay before so that’s another option if you struggle to find them at Dollarama or your local dollar store. I’ll be making mint cubes this year as well just so we have flavours for our meals all winter long. It’s super easy but I find the muffin tins less messy than ice cube trays.