Herb Salt

Before testing this recipe for homemade herb salt, I was in the market and saw an entire section of gourmet herb salts for sale—the variety of flavors was expansive and impressive. Seeing these gourmet salts (with their gourmet prices), I began to think about how most people don’t realize how easy they are to make at home. This is a great recipe that shows you just how easy the process is. I love sage with its strong earthy flavor that pairs wonderfully with meats, fish, and veggies, especially during fall. I used this round of sage salt on a simple side dish of roasted organic sweet potato rounds. Along with a drizzle of fruity olive oil, the green salt mixture was visually pretty on the orange sweet potatoes and tasted great as well. I would love to try this salt on grilled pork chops or maybe on a batch of crisp roasted chickpeas or maybe a baked white fish fillet. In terms of the recipe itself, I blended the two ingredients together in my mini-prep food processor for 30 seconds; at this point the mixture was homogeneous. I am excited to try this method with some other herbs I have on hand. Next I think I’ll try dried lavender salt, and basil salt with some fresh basil from the garden.

Sage salt is such a simple and versatile addition to foods! I used it on sliced tomatoes, grilled chicken, grilled pork chops, and sautéed fresh corn and peppers. Next time I’ll be doubling the recipe! I can also see trying this with fresh thyme or rosemary. It was just a great little finishing salt for fresh vegetables and all grilled meats. Just change the herb for whatever is available in your herb garden.

I used fresh basil rather than sage because basil is my favorite herb and I have pots of it growing on my kitchen window sills. (By the way, do you know that if you purchase a bunch of basil from the supermarket and keep it in a glass of water on your windowsill it will grow roots and continue to grow?) That said, I loved the idea of having basil salt ready to use and would highly recommend it for any herb that you use often and also recommend that you double the recipe. The recipe is pretty straightforward and couldn’t be simpler. I used it to sprinkle on salads and on pasta with olive oil and basil salt. I don’t know the storage life because I used all of mine in one day. I’d be interested in knowing how long it lasts being that the herbs are fresh but I would imagine that the salt acts as a preservative and prevents the herbs from rotting.

This homemade herb salt recipe is so versatile and easy and can be made in less than 5 minutes. I made it in a mortar and pestle with fresh sage. The result was a fine texture and a beautiful color. On tasting it, I thought it lacked a strong enough taste of sage, so I added a few more leaves, which was another teaspoon. It would also be great made with rosemary. I would suggest making a large amount as it can be used in so many dishes. I used mine as a rub for a pork loin roast. I also sprinkled it on mashed potatoes and roast chicken.

This herb salt is the perfect addition to your recipe arsenal. I opted for basil and in less than 2 minutes my handy mortar and pestle created a restaurant-worthy salt. I sprinkled it on a warm salad of heirloom tomatoes and butter-poached lobster.

I think flavored salts are a great way to preserve fresh herbs and to very easily add flavor to a dish. They also make great gifts. They’re also versatile—I’ve used this herb salt on scrambled eggs, roasted vegetables, tomatoes, etc. It could be awesome to add a pinch to a cocktail! I’m thinking herb sugar would also be a similar process and worth a try for the holidays. My problem with this recipe might have stemmed from execution. I chopped the sage pretty finely and added it to my spice grinder with coarse kosher salt, thinking that the larger crystals would hold some sizable shaped during blending. In order to get everything sufficiently blended, I had to blitz it for much longer that I would have liked and my resulting salt, although tasty, was very fine and almost powdery. My solution is to hand chop the herb as finely as possible before mixing with the salt and to pulse the mixture just a few times before hand mixing to incorporate. I would hope that that would maintain the integrity of the salt crystals, and blend in the sage well. Another alternative would be to blend the sage with just some of the salt first to get it started and then add the rest so that the majority of the salt wouldn’t get overworked while trying to fully blend in the herb.