Can You Freeze Tarragon?

4 minutes

You probably know that a little goes a long way when it comes to using tarragon. You don’t need bundles of the stuff. The problem is you always end up with some leftovers sitting in your fridge. So, what do you do with them?

How to Freeze Tarragon

Freezing tarragon is simple, and it’s a great way to maintain the complex flavour that you know and love.

1. Mince: Mince the herb on a chopping board as you normally would when cooking with it. All of the tarragon stems are edible, so make sure to chop up the stems as you would the leaves.
2. Add to an Ice Cube Tray: Press the minced tarragon into an ice cube tray, being sure that you press firmly so that it’s dense. Top the tray slots up with a small amount of water.
3. Freeze: Freeze the tray filled with herbs and water until the ice cubes are solid. To be safe, we usually recommend leaving the tray for 24 hours to ensure the cubes freeze solidly.
4. Transfer: Moving the cubes into a freezer bag for long-term storage isn’t necessary, but it does mean that you can use the tray for something else. This can be either regular ice cubes or freezing another herb in small portions.

This method is an approach that works for more types of herbs. If you have any fresh herbs in your garden or fridge that you don’t want to see go to waste, try and freeze them:

3 Tips for Freezing Tarragon

Now you know how to freeze it, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing tarragon to have the best results:

Use Oils Instead
If you’d like to avoid freezing the tarragon in water, you could freeze it in olive or vegetable oil. A great choice would be coconut oil, or something else that’s solid at room temperature – that will hold the herbs very effectively.

Label Clearly
Ensure that you label the bag with the date that you freeze the tarragon. That will allow you to make sure that you use the herbs while they’re still pleasantly fresh. You need to also include tarragon on the label. Once frozen, they’ll look like any other frozen green herb or leaf.

Add Other Herbs for a Blend
You might find it helpful to make a herb blend. That way, you can easily add a cube or two to a pot of stew or soup, and you’ve got a wonderful way of adding an instant hit of flavour.

How Long Can You Freeze Tarragon?

You can freeze tarragon for around 3 months – that’s the general maximum that we give for most items of food.

Realistically, you can store tarragon for up to a year, but beyond 3 months, the flavour is likely to degrade more and more. Naturally, this is something that people usually want to avoid.

How Do You Defrost Tarragon?

You can defrost tarragon by cooking with it directly from frozen – the ice cubes are a handy portion to throw right into the pan that you’re cooking in.

Avoid adding ice to hot oil, however – that will result in hot oil splattering everywhere around the kitchen, which is wasteful at best and dangerous at worst.

Can You Refreeze Tarragon?

Yes, you can refreeze tarragon quite easily.

To do this, you can follow the steps that we laid out above – the pieces of tarragon should still have plenty of flavours when packed into an ice cube tray together.

Does Tarragon Freeze Well?

Yes, tarragon does freeze well: the flavour of the tarragon is maintained well by this freezing method since the water forms an essentially airtight barrier around the tarragon that you’re freezing.

Of course, the texture will be ruined but you very rarely, if ever, use tarragon for the texture.

Related FAQs

If you’ve still got questions about freezing tarragon or tarragon in general, then these may help: