How to Preserve Dill

Every summer, we dry and store mint, basil, chamomile, thyme, and lavender. Hanging and drying works well for these herbs, but dill never tastes very flavourful when you dry it. My mother used press dill between paper towels and freeze it, which tastes good, but requires too much space. My favourite way to preserve dill, is to salt it.

We don't plant dill, it just grows up around the vegetables (and flowers) in our garden. Once you have dill in your garden, it will see itself down, everywhere. Dill has the most flavour just before it flowers. I find the dill you buy in stores either too young or too old.

The trick to good salted dill is making sure you don't include the dill stalks as they get tough in the salt. Pick the dill and pull the leaves off the thicker stems, and then cut them up. I use a mezzaluna to cut it on the cutting board.

Use a clean jar, layer with salt, dill, and push down the dill with a spoon or a pestle, add another layer of salt, and alternate. Then seal the jar and store it in the fridge.

I use the dill in the winter to make tzatziki It is pretty salty, so you rinse it off. I find you can shake the worst of the salt off, and then add the salty dill and forgo using additional salt. This method works great if you sprinkle the dill over the cucumber. The salt will help to get the excess water out of the cuke.