What Herbs Should I Keep on Hand?

@lighth0se33 – I also love herbes de Provence. However, I usually leave the sage out of mine.

I can't help but associate sage with sausage. So, anything I eat that has sage on it tastes like sausage. I don't want other meats to have this flavor, so I never cook with sage.

Chamomile is one of the best natural herb treatments for menstrual pain. My neighbor grows it in her yard, and she lets me have some of it to make tea.

The tea isn't sweet unless I add honey to it, which I usually do in order to improve the flavor. There is no way to describe the flavor of chamomile, except to say that it tastes exactly like it smells.

Hot chamomile tea relaxes my body so that I don't have such intense menstrual cramps. Any woman who suffers from them should consider keeping chamomile on hand.

Herbes de Provence is at the top of my favorite herbs list. It's actually a mixture of several standard herbs, but the combination is magical.

I use it on chicken, baked potatoes, and rice. My first bottle of it came with a spice rack that my sister bought me as a wedding gift, and I was unable to find a replacement for the herbs once I ran out.

However, the lid on the bottle told me what was in it. It contains rosemary, sage, thyme, marjoram, basil, and oregano. So, I can make my own out of other herbs that I already have on hand.

Fresh parsley tastes entirely different than dried parsley. I had been eating the dried version for years, and when I tried it fresh, I didn't even recognize it.

It is much more potent. I can't say that I like it better, though. I think I prefer the subtlety of the dried parsley, because I can sprinkle a normal amount on something without the flavor taking over the entire meal.

I make mint tea with fresh mint. It's unlike any tea I've had before and definitely much tastier than the tea bags in the grocery store. You just need 2-3 mint leaves. Actually, you can make tea with some kinds of dry oregano and thyme also. It's especially good when you have a cold. You can have it with a slice of lemon and honey.

I also like fresh parsley. I've noticed that fresh parsley goes really well with cheese. If I'm short on time and need to make a snack, I make a filling with feta or mozzarella cheese and fill it inside of those frozen pastries or croissants. Parsley is good on pizzas and in chicken noodle soup too. But watch out that you don't grab cilantro instead of parsley in the store. I did that once and the result was not so tasty. They look very similar but parsley has smaller leaves. Italian parsley is easy to differentiate because it's small and curly unlike cilantro that has large and flat leaves.

Two herbs that I cannot cook without are oregano and mint. I use dried versions most of the time but I often buy them fresh and dry them myself. The store brands are usually not fresh and don't taste as good. The dried mint I'm using now, I bought from a farmer's market near my house. I laid the leaves out on a newspaper in the sun and it dried in a couple of days. All you have to do after that is smash it with your hands into tiny pieces and put it in a spice container.

I use lots of mint when I make lentil soup and also for stuffed peppers. Oregano, I use in all of my meat and chicken dishes, it adds flavor to the meat instantly. One of my favorite snacks is plain yogurt with dry oregano and wheat crackers.