How to Freeze Basil

I finally made a point to get out into the garden today and prune back the basil plants that have now gone to seed. Whoops!  Now that the chickens have been confined to their run and are no longer trampling through gardens, the basil plants were able to regain their posture a bit over the last week or so and were in desperate need of some TLC.   As with everything else in the garden, it all seems to comes at once.  I knew there was no way I would be using the amount of basil that I harvested today any time soon,  so I did a little research and devised a plan to freeze my basil in ice cube trays, bag it up and keep it in the fridge for future occasions when a recipe called for a few tablespoons of chopped basil!  Here is what to do:

Harvest your basil.

Pull the leaves from the stems and place them into a food processor or blender.  

Pour one to two tablespoons of olive oil into the food processor 

Pulse!

.....until it looks like this.

Spoon about a tablespoon of basil into each section of your ice cube tray. 

Add a little water to help the cubes hold their shape.

Place the ice cube trays in the freezer for a few hours .

  

Once the cubes are frozen, remove the basil cubes.... 

...and bag them up in a freezer bag, throw them back into the freezer and use as needed!  

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