Use Fresh Herbs for Cooking 

Herbal Recipes

Many fresh herbs used for cooking have well known healing properties. Using herbs for cooking is a good way to to have the best of both worlds. You can enhance the taste of your favourite dishes with fresh herbs, and at the same time help to eat yourself into good health!
It is likely that you probably use a few herbs for cooking - such as basil and thyme - but experimenting with a greater range of readily available herbs can add taste to your dishes whilst at the same time improving health.

All supermarkets now carry a good range of fresh herbs - often growing in pots, so until you get round to growing your own herbs, this is a great way to start using fresh herbs for cooking.

Cooking with fresh herbs is just as easy as using dried herbs. Just chop up a bit of the herb and season to taste. You will need to use about twice as much of the fresh herb than the dried herbs. You can wait until the last 20 minutes of cooking, then add the herb so the taste stays crisp. Dried Herbs can be used to flavour most foods. Commonly used for cooking pasta sauces, herbs can also be added to soups, oils, eggs and even desserts and drinks. Almost any aspect of cooking can be improved with the careful addition of herbs.

Here are a few food/herb combinations that can be used in your cooking:

•  Eggs with dill
•  Pesto with basil
•  Mint in any tea or punch
•  Parsley with salad
•  Rosemary and Thyme on oven roasted potatoes

•  Basil and sage added to flavour butter

If you have a special condition or illness that might be treated with herbs, then feel free to incorporate the herbs into your usual cooking. Start by adding a small amount of the herb(s) and taste - add more to suit. And remember: cooking with fresh herbs is a great way to realize the healthy benefit of herbs without having to remember to take pills. You can also gain benefits from cooking with dried herbs - The Chinese have been doing it for centuries - and look at the size of their population!

If you don't use herbs in your cooking, you are simply heating up food!

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