Happy Fall everyone! Although I love the garden bounty that summer provides, fall is my favorite season. I am a cooler-weather person, as controversial as that might be. A big part of the end of summer/beginning of fall in my family is preserving the garden’s bounty from the summer, including herbs.
The way that most herbs are preserved is by drying them, and I absolutely utilize this method. But, another fun way that I like to preserve herbs is by turning them into a herb compound butter.
All you need is butter and the herbs you want to preserve! Just finely chop or mince your herbs and then mix them with the butter. One note: make sure your butter is room temperature or softened. It makes it so much easier to mix the herbs into the butter. I used a handful of chopped herbs per 1.3 sticks of butter. Basically I used a pound of butter and divided it between the three herbs I was saving for the fall/winter.
Once the herbs are evenly mixed throughout the butter, place the mixture on a piece of parchment paper and roll into a log. I then wrapped the parchment paper logs in plastic wrap as an extra layer of protection and labeled them with the herbs they contained.
Now you’re ready to to use your herb compound butter all fall and winter. Think of your Thanksgiving turkey or stuffing (dressing) with the sage butter. Or roasted vegetables with the rosemary butter. Or even a popcorn movie night using the rosemary butter! And spreading basil butter on garlic bread as a side to tomato soup or spaghetti with marinara sauce.
