When you have a large crop of motherwort 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 motherwort:
- Make a tea or add it to a tea blend. Motherwort tea is best prepared as an infusion. Motherwort tea has a bitter taste. If the bitter taste bothers you, you may consider blending it with less-bitter herbs with similar actions such as rose petals and hawthorn berries or with masking tastes such as peppermint and ginger.
- Add it to broths. Motherwort can be a good addition to bone broths, vegetable broths, and herbal broths.
- Make an herbal honey. An herbal honey is a delicious way to preserve the herbal properties of your motherwort, extend its shelf life, and get benefits of honey too. In this case, it can also balance motherwort's bitter taste.
- Make a tincture. The suggested herb:solvent ratio for a motherwort tincture is 1:5 in 40% alcohol.
- Dry it to save it for later use in any of the above herbal preparations. See our How to Dry Your Herbs articles here for more information.
- Make a capsule. Dried motherwort can be powdered and put in a capsule. This is a good way to enjoy the benefits of motherwort if you do not like and cannot mask its taste.
Further Reading
Growing motherwort? Check out these quick facts like its best growing conditions, companion plants, and expected yields.
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