How do I use herbs and spices properly?

Herbs and spices behave differently depending on where their flavour lives. Dried herbs and spices hold flavour in oils that need heat and time to release; fresh herbs hold volatile aromatics that heat destroys. That single distinction determines when each goes into the pan.

Step by step

1. Add dried herbs early, with the onions or the liquid.They need time and heat to rehydrate and release their oils. Added at the end they taste dusty.
2. Add most fresh herbs at the very end, off the heat.Basil, coriander, parsley, dill, chives. Their aromatics are volatile and cooking drives them off.
3. Treat woody fresh herbs as an exception — rosemary, thyme, bay, sage go in early.Their oils are more heat-stable and they need time to infuse.
4. Toast whole spices in a dry pan for 30–60 seconds before grinding.Until fragrant, shaking the pan. It transforms cumin, coriander seed, fennel and mustard seed in particular.
5. Bloom ground spices in fat for 30–60 seconds before adding liquid.Their flavour compounds are fat-soluble. Frying them briefly extracts far more than stirring them into liquid.
6. Don't let spices burn — they turn bitter fast.Ground spices in hot fat go from fragrant to burnt in seconds. Have the next ingredient ready.
7. Buy whole spices where you can and grind as needed.Ground spices lose potency within months. Whole ones keep their flavour for years.
8. Check your spice rack — smell each jar and replace anything that smells of nothing.Ground spices are largely spent after about a year. Most home spice racks contain several jars past usefulness.

Tips

• Roughly three times as much fresh herb as dried when substituting, since drying concentrates the flavour.
• Store spices away from the hob and out of light. The rack directly above the cooker is the worst possible place.
• Buy spices in small quantities from somewhere with turnover. Supermarket jars can be old before you buy them.
• Crushing dried herbs between your palms as you add them helps release the oils.

Common mistakes

• Adding fresh herbs early — Cooking drives off the volatile aromatics that are the point of them.
• Adding dried herbs at the end — They haven't had time to rehydrate and release flavour, so they taste dusty.
• Never replacing ground spices — They're largely flavourless after about a year, and adding more doesn't compensate.
• Storing spices above the cooker — Heat and light degrade them faster than anything else.

Questions people ask