hijack MY thread so we can all learn something useful? MADNESS I say.
Yes, please do share, Broomstick!
Some herbs dry a lot better than others - or at least, they all dry, but quite a lot of them don’t taste nice after you’re done 
Basil, chives and parsley at least are better frozen or freeze-dried (I buy them frozen or freeze-dried if I can’t get fresh), but I can’t seem to get freezing herbs right. In my experience, it’s easiest to make some kind of pesto out of the basil* and freeze that in an ice-cube tray. Also works for rocket (arugula/rucola) and I suppose it should work with parsley too if you adjust the recipe.
Frozen pesto isn’t as great as really fresh, but it holds up pretty well, especially if you add it to sauces (cream or tomato based sauces work well). I prefer really fresh pesto if it’s the only sauce.
- In a food processor (or pestle), chop/mash up one or more cloves of garlic, a handful or two of grated cheese (parmezan or other old/salty cheese), some toasted pine nuts (optional, but very nice), a little lemon juice or vinegar and some olive oil. Then add a big bunch of herb in batches until you’ve got a smooth mixture, salt and pepper.
This works for most herbs I’ve grown: parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, lavender, mint, chives, etc. (I’ve seen where supposedly “high moisture” plants like mint and basil don’t do so well - I keep the bunches small and make sure the drying area is low humidity. I’ve never had a problem.)
Cut bunches of the plant - a comfortable handful works.
Tie the stems together tightly (because there will be shrinkage) and hang in a dry, preferably dark/shaded place. You don’t want them in direct sunlight. Some air movement is a good thing. If you live in a climate with a really humid time of year it might be problematic, but I’ve yet to have a problem.
When dry enough to crumble easily, they’re dried. You can either leave them hanging at that point, or put them in jars.
Sage and rosemary you want to crumble the leaves off the stem.
Chives I cut up fine and leave to dry on a paper towel in a dry, dim place.
If you want to hurry you can use a dehydrator or an low-set oven and get the job done in under two days but I’ve never bothered. For herbs with higher moisture content you might want to get things started with those techniques, but I find my home in late fall/early winter is dry enough for the job. Small bunches usually dry in a couple weeks at most, and you can use them for cooking at any point in the process.
The only thing I haven’t figured out how to dry is aloe. I’m pretty sure it can’t be done in the home setting.
Here is a primer on herb drying. I don’t use paper bags, I just hang them up, but if your drying area is dusty or something you might want to use the bags.
Thanks much. In my effort to eat more healthily, I’ve been trying to avoid/reduce heavily processed foods.
One of the best ways to do that is to rely on your own garden. I generally don’t do much more than lettuce and tomatoes and the occasional pepper and eggplant, but we have been very successful with herbs the past several years.
We eat a lot of pasta and veggies. My next “goal” is to rely more on homemade sauces (tomato/white/cheese) than jar. Figured if I’m going that route, I’ll need to be more reliant on herbs…
I personally do not dry very much (except dill seed, which I felt sorta wasteful tossing – there was just so very much of it at the end of the season).
I prefer the icecube method for basil and such. Finely chop your herbs and put them in icecube trays. Pour water over them. Once frozen, pop them in plastic bags.
This is how my brother does his mint, except he doesn’t dice it. Just breaks it into smaller stems, fills a “snack sized” ziploc bag and then fills the bag with water - always a ready supply of mojitos at his place!!
Mint goes bad much too quickly for me, so I’ll have to try this.
To be clear, after filling the snack sized bag with water, he freezes the whole lot. On re-reading my post I sorta left that part out. Don’t forget to leave a little headspace for the expansion of the water.