Witchcraft: Easy Herb Drying

We all love the whimsical witchy aesthetic of bundles of herbs hanging from rough hewn wooden rafters in a cobblestone cottage at the edge of the woods surrounded by wild flowers… But like me, you probably live in a more modern building and while we add whimsy and magic where we can, sometimes we gotta make some practical decisions for ease of use.

Practical magic baby!

Since I like to grow some of my own herbs in little pots on my kitchen windowsill (which feels very magical in itself) I have also tested a few different ways of drying herbs. My favorite method that I’ve landed on is probably the least attractive, but definitely the fastest, cleanest, and most practical.

First and foremost, let’s get some fresh herbs!

Snip your herb stalks close to the base of the plant, just above a set of leaves. If your plants are growing outside, give the cut stalks a shake and look them over for any hitchhiking critters. Bring them to your sink and give them a thorough rinse with cold water to clean off any dirt. Shake the excess water off but don’t worry about drying them.

Grab some paper towels. Lay out a strip of three sheets on a flat surface. (You may not need three, but it’s easier to start with three and remove what you don’t use.) Take one of your herb stalks and snip off the individual leaves right where the leaf meets the stem, laying them out on the paper towels as you do so. Be efficient with space, but try to avoid overlapping the leaves.

Tip: If you’re drying more than one type of herb at the same time,
separate them onto different sections of paper towels
so they don’t get mixed up once they’re dry.

After you have your leaves all laid out, start at one of the short edges on the paper towels and roll it up carefully. Try to keep the leaves from moving around too much while rolling it up, but don’t stress it too much. I have found that the little twist-ties that you get in the produce department of the grocery store work great to keep the paper towels from unrolling. They don’t even need to meet on the other side of the roll, just wrap them around as far as they’ll go and kinda pinch them a little to keep the curved shape. If you’d like, a bit of string loosely tied around would work wonderfully as well.

Tip: Grab a marker and write the name of the herb and
the date you prepped them on the edge of the paper towel roll.

Set the roll somewhere out of the way, but with good airflow for a week or two. I just tuck mine on the back of my kitchen counter next to my fruit bowl. After a week, carefully lift the edge of the paper towel roll until you can see some leaves and check for dryness. They don’t necessarily need to be crumbling, often properly dried leaves can still be bendy, but they feel like a sheet of paper which is both totally dry and bendy. Depending on how humid your residence is, it may take up to two weeks.

Once your leaves are dry, unroll the paper towels and gather your lovely ready to use herbs! You can stack them together and store them whole (I like to do this with lemon balm and other herbs that I’ll use for tea and want to strain easily) or chop them up. An electric spice grinder would make short work of this, but a sharp knife and a cutting board work wonderfully. Store them in an airtight container out of the sun.

That’s it! You’re done!

The beauty of this method is that the paper towels draw out the moisture from the leaves quickly and evenly. The leaves have already been separated from the stems when they were still fresh, which is much easier than trying to get the leaves after the whole stalk is dried and the stems have gotten crumbly and annoying.

So why not dry herbs in bundles?

The two biggest issues I’ve had trying to dry herbs the “traditional” way are dust/oil collecting on the leaves and having leaves fall on the floor during the drying process. When bundles of herbs are hanging around the house, they will collect dust. Dust is inevitable, no matter how much you clean. Since I often use my herbs in spells that will be consumed as food or drink, I really don’t want dusty herbs that are impossible to clean. If you hang your herb bundles in your kitchen, you’re not only battling dust, but also oils that float around and collect on surfaces from cooking. If oils get on your herbs, even if they were bone dry, they will go rancid.

What about bundles in paper bags?

I have tried the solution of using brown paper lunch bags tied around the herb bundles and hung up. Definitely not a very pretty look, but it does protect the herbs from dust and oil. It also catches any dried leaves that might fall off of the bundles during the drying process. Truth be told though, they’re kind of a pain in the butt to work with, and if I’m going to forgo the aesthetics, I might as well do so with the paper towels which are faster and take up far less space.

If you try this method, please let me know how it goes for you and if you have any suggestions!

PS: I fully endorse having pretty bundles of herbs and flowers hanging around just for looks by the way!
I just don’t recommend actually using them unless it’s for a burning spell where it doesn’t really matter how clean they are.