How To Freeze Mint Leaves
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If you often find yourself buying herbs for a recipe but not using them all, freezing them might be the answer to avoid food waste.
Here is how to freeze mint leaves.
While I do try to use dried herbs as they last longer and are more cost-effective than buying cut herbs from the supermarket, there are occasionally recipes where only fresh herbs will do
This post will look at how to freeze mint leaves to stop them from ending up in the food waste.
Can you Freeze Mint Leaves?
Yes, you can freeze mint leaves. Freezing mint leaves is a great way to preserve them for future use, prevent food waste and save money.
While clearing out my fridge this week, I found half a packet of mint leaves which I’d bought to make a particular dish earlier in the week.
I’m generally pretty good at using up ingredients, but on this occasion, I had completely forgotten they were there (the dish, just in case you were wondering, was homemade Nandos Macho Peas which have featured over on my food blog).
I had a look at our meal plan for the week and I just couldn’t see anywhere we could add them to a recipe to use them up and the mint leaves were already starting to look past their best.
I decided the best thing to do would be to freeze them.
Like most herbs, mint freezes well so you can easily freeze mint leaves.
How To Freeze Mint Leaves
Freezing mint leaves – You will need:
- Mint Leaves
- A Knife
- A Chopping Board
- An Ice Cube tray
- Water or Oil
Using an ice cube tray to freeze any type of herb is a great hack.
It means you can take out a small amount of herbs (one or two cubes) to add to a dish whenever you need it and just pop it into the cooking pot.
It also allows you to top up with other herbs as you go – as you can see below the mint only filled up half the ice cube tray I used.
Alternatively, ice cube trays can be used for freezing small amounts of leftover wine or stock to be used in dishes at a later date.
How To Freeze Fresh Mint
Freezing fresh mint is easy and there are just a few simple steps you need to follow.
- First, carefully wash the mint leaves and gently pat dry with a tea towel.
- Next, make sure all the leaves are still in a good, edible condition. As you can see from the picture above, some of my mint leaves were definitely starting to get past their best so I cut away and discarded those bits.
- Then remove any very chunky bits of stalk and finely chop all the mint leaves that remain.
- Place the chopped mint into an ice cube tray.
- Before freezing, add a little water or cooking oil to each section of mint. Then place in the freezer until needed. If you want to use the ice cube tray for something else, simply pop out the mint cubes after a few hours and store them in a freezer bag.
This method will work with most fresh herbs or you could even make cubes of mixed herbs if you have lots of different varieties of fresh herbs that need using up.
And that’s it.
A super-easy way to freeze mint leaves and avoid wasting food!
How Log Does Fresh Mint Last In The Freezer?
Technically, you can freeze most food indefinitely provided the freezer remains at -18.
However, food will start to deteriorate after around six months and you might notice some discolouration or freezer burn starting to show.
This is a sure sign that your frozen mint leaves need to be used up.
I recommended labelling and dating the mint once it has been frozen and rebagged with the date it was frozen and an approximate date it needs to be used by – around six to eight months after freezing in this case.
More frugal food hacks:
Eating kitchen scraps to save money
Cooking the right amount of food
How to rescue burnt or overcooked food