Herbs are easy to grow in your garden, or even in pots on your deck or patio. They often produce far more than you can use, so you can take the extra and dry it down. Drying your own herbs reduces waste, but it also gives you more flavor than store bought dried herbs. A convection oven works best for drying herbs, but a normal oven at low temp can work well too, it will just take longer.
Cilantro, after one hour in the oven it’s completely dry.
Separate the leaves from the stems, discarding any off color leaves.
Clean and trim the herbs, discarding the stems. For herbs such as chives you will want to cut them into small pieces before drying.
Place parchment paper on a sheet pan, and you can put a cooling rack on top of the parchment paper to allow better air circulation.
Place a single layer of the herbs out on the sheet pan.
Place in a convection oven at the lowest temperature setting (usually 150 or 200 degrees).
Dry for one hour and check. Fine herbs like parsley, cilantro or chives will probably be dry while thicker herbs such as basil may take more time.
Process the dry herbs and store in a mason jar. I found I can usually just put the dried herbs in a bowl and crush them with my fingers. A food processor can grind them too fine.
