When you have a large crop of thyme from the garden or farmstand, you don't have time to casually include it in complicated recipes or to frantically figure out how to use it up before it goes bad without getting sick of it. You want to make the most of your harvest and to actually enjoy it.
Here at Plant to Plate, we like to keep things simple! Here are some of my favorite ways to use or preserve thyme:
- Sauté it with carrots.
- Sauté it with mushrooms and oregano.
- Sauté it with artichoke hearts.
- Bake it with salmon along with lemon juice, lemon balm, or lemon verbena.
- Bake it with chicken and marjoram.
- Add it to egg dishes like omelets and quiches.
- Add it to soups and broths. Thyme complements a wide variety of soups, from potato-centric soups to various multi-veggie soups to meaty and grainy soups.
- Use it as Decor in an Interesting Salad. (Wondering why I capitalized those letters? Read more about Interesting Salads here!)
- Add it to other salads.
- Add it to a sauté or stirfry.
- Add it to pasta and other grain dishes like quinoa and rice.
- Add it to your favorite meat dish, stovetop, slow-cooked, or baked. Thyme complements most meat, including chicken, turkey, duck, beef, lamb, pork, and elk.
- Make a tea. Thyme is a great standalone tea, and it also pairs well with other herbs in a blend. It is best prepared as a hot infusion or a cold infusion. Here are a few ways to use your thyme in a tea in addition to anything you might experiment with on your own:
- Alone or with honey – hot or cold
- With peppermint and rosemary – hot or cold
- With echinacea petals and tulsi – hot or cold
- With marshmallow and sage. This blend should only be prepared as a cold infusion, using cold, cool, or room temperature water but not hot or warm water, due to marshmallow's mucilaginous properties. See the cold infusions article here for more information.
- Make an herbal syrup. Thyme makes a great syrup alone, and it also pairs well with various combinations of fellow respiratory supporters like peppermint, sage, dried cherry bark, elderflower, mullein, and/or elecampane. Check out our article on how to make an herbal syrup here.
- Make infused vinegar. Thyme-infused vinegar is a delicious simple salad dressing on its own. It is also great when co-infused with alliums like leeks, shallots, garlic, or onions.
- Make infused oil. Thyme oil makes a good salad dressing as well. It can also be processed further into a chest salve or a lotion, among other uses.
- Dry it for later use in any of the above culinary and herbal uses. See our How to Dry Your Herbs articles here for more information.
- Freeze it to save it for later. This can be done with whole or chopped thyme, or it can be done in ice cubes. Learn how to make herbal ice cubes in our Freezing Overview article here.
- Add it to pickles. Thyme pairs well with a variety of other foods in pickles, including cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots, parsnips, radishes, and others. Thyme works well with both traditional and quick-pickling methods.
- Add it to jams and jellies. Thyme can add a twist to various jellies such as those made with blackberries, cherries, peaches, and cranberries.
Further Reading
Growing thyme? Check out these quick facts like its best growing conditions, companion plants, and expected yields.
Thyme is also featured in these articles: