I love having a ton of fresh herbs around to cook with. In the summer we always have more than I know what to do with, but come winter its the opposite. I pick up some fresh herbs every time we go to the store, and for a long time I would leave them in the bag and try to use them fast enough and dry the rest but it always ended up with a ton of them going into the trash. So I tried a few new storage methods out this winter and ended up with one I love. It not only makes the kitchen have some pretty green in it during the winter but smells good and keeps the herbs fresh for a long time.
I highly recommend getting the highest quality herbs you can find, if you aren't growing them fresh yourself. Most herbs can grow year round, and if you keep up with them, you can have enough dry and fresh to cook anything you might want. This year we were out of town and no one watered our windowsill garden, so we have to start over in spring. When you are buying the herbs, pick through them,check for healthy, strong stems and look for any wilting or rotting, and for any yellowing. Same goes if you are growing them, if something looks yellow or rotting, go ahead and take it out, the entire bunch will last longer if you do.
When you get home make sure to rinse out the herbs with room temperature water. Remove anything with yellowing or rot. Once you are down put them on a paper towel and let them dry off a little, spreading them out so they are not in one big pile. Once they have dried a little, cut the stems at an angle just like you would for flowers.
Once the herbs are trimmed, I take half of the cleaned herbs and wrap them for drying, and the other half I put in a jar with copper wire and water. I use tap water, the minerals seem to treat the herbs better while they grow compared to when I used my filtered water. I usually dry the herbs that are shorter or seem to be on the way out. My mother always put a copper penny in the bottom of any flowers she was keeping, and it always seemed to work. I didn't have a copper penny, but I did have some copper wire! You can bend it to fit and make it look cute if you want too! Or just cut a tiny amount of you don't want it to show.
Herbs love sunlight, so I put mine right in the kitchen window sill. I change out the water every 3 days, making sure to wash the cup and rinse off any gunk building up on the stems of the herbs. On average, a glass full of herbs will last me about 3 months using this method, much better than the week I was getting out of them when I was leaving them in the fridge in a plastic bag.
Drying the herbs is easy! All you have to do is hang them up till they are dried, some take a week or less, some take a little longer. My fridge gets ton of sunlight, and sunlight will help dry out the herbs a little quicker. When the leaves are crisp and you can't feel any more moisture, they are dried. Put them into a glass container and they will keep for 2 years after being dried! I go through way more herbs now with my cooking because the fresh dried herbs have more of a kick, and I also use a little less salt because of all the flavor. The herbs in the mugs and hung up to dry both look amazing and add a nice bit of green that is much needed in the winter months, and some amazing flavors to our meals. I can't wait till the herbs start to sprout this spring to share more with everyone!