Freezing vs dehydrating herbs

Hello sedel. drying basil loses of it's flavor. Freezing helps it keeps it to retain more of it's fresh flavor. Some say to steam it over hot water for one minute then plunge into ice water. Then spread out on paper towels to dry then freeze and put into plastic bags. Another way is to chop the leaves and put n olive oil then freeze. Some one else freezes theirs in ice cube covered with water. then bagged when it is frozen. Ovens normally get too hot to dry herbs. they should be dry at 90 degrees but most ovens don't go below 140. Freezing green onions and chive is best too I think. Make sure they are thoroughly dried on paper towels before cutting them up. Then place on parchment or was paper on cookie sheet , cover with plastic wrap put in the freezer for three or four hours. Freeze them on a cooking sheet will draw out more moisture. Now I have found a very neat way to store them in the freeze and to dispense them easily. Store therm in those water bottles instead if plastic bags.

When I grew herbs and mint for tea... I always just dried them...harvest, de-stem and wash, then put in brown paper bags and seal the tops and put the bags in a hot dry place...my garage...for a couple months. Then take them out and pull any stems left in there off so just to get the leaves and then I crumbled them into a glass jar. THen with the mint tea leaves, I used a ball strainer full of the dry leaves into a boiling cup of water. My grand daughter loved doing this whole procedure and enjoyed her mint tea every winter! I have also...now that she is grown and I don't have much mint anyway... I just harvest and wash, de-stem and then dry completely on paper towels and then put the one a cookie sheet and put the sheet in the freezer so they leaves freeze and then I put them in a container and leave them in the freezer. Works great as when you take them out when you need them..the are still stiff and crunchy and still have their own juices and aren't wilted. Other herbs I just used the brown bag method.