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What Are Mixed Herbs

If you grow a lot of your own herbs in the Summer months you may want to then dry and use all year round. Having a homemade jar of mixed herbs to hand can be helpful and convenient for all family cooking too!

The food company Schwartz do a basic mixed herb blend of marjoram, basil, oregano and thyme, whereas we prefer a more developed blend including those herbs and adding dried parsley, sage and rosemary. All of these herbs have different taste profiles and the ratio needs to be considered.

Ratios of ingredients is where the culinary skills come in! We have a bit of a cool cupboard set aside for dried herbs and mix as we go, but I like the convenience of pre-mixed herbs!

mixed herbs
Keeping herbs stored in ambient temperature is key to keeping flavor locked in

Recipes For Mixed Herbs

The simplest recipe is one part oregano to one part thyme, one part basil and one part marjoram. We think that oregano and marjoram have very similar taste profiles and adding them both just gives us a slightly stronger Italian herb profile. So we mix it up a bit!

  • 1/4 cup dried oregano
  • 1/2 cup dried thyme
  • 1/2 cup dried basil
  • 1/4 cup dried marjoram
  • 1/3 cup dried rosemary
  • 1/4 cup dried sage
  • 3/4 cup dried parsley
  • 1/4 cup dried tarragon

As you can see we make in bulk! Scale this recipe down or up to suit your family and their favorite dishes. Mixed herbs work perfectly added at the beginning of cooking whilst frying off some onions for casseroles, stews or fillings for pies. We also sprinkle this over roasting vegetables to give a lovely aroma during cooking and a great flavor enhancer.

Your mixed herbs should not overwhelm the flavors in the dish, but enhance them instead. Think about which herbs go well with which food and try to make your own mixed herbs.

Why Would You Make Your Own Mixed Herbs

People often ask me why we bother to dry our own herbs and make mixed herbs. Well you can see that we can add more herbs to the mix, but also we can play around with those four basic ingredients. Oregano, Basil, Thyme and Marjoram are a lovely combination for the classic mixed herbs that we can buy in a supermarket, however we can play with the ratios and the basic ingredients.

mixed herbs
Greek basil and Lemon Thyme

We grow Greek basil, which you can propagate from supermarket plants or from seeds. It has a much more concentrated, intense flavor and really dries well. We also love the citrus tang and vibrancy of lemon thyme, which you can buy as seeds or plugs from reputable local nurseries or online nurseries. This gives us more bang for our buck and makes the mixed herbs go a lot further.

Growing and drying your own mixed herbs does need a larger space than just using fresh herbs. If you are limited in space you may be surprised how many herbs thrive in pots or containers. If you are limited to a flat with no outdoors space at all, you will be able to get a lot of satisfaction from growing herbs indoors all year round.

So no need to rush to the store and buy the same old mix, get the ingredients and a few large mason jars to make your own family favorites.

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