Homemade Herbs de Provence Salt Recipe (2024)

I am having a seriously HUGE bumper crop of herbs this year. After running out of room to hang-dry herbs in my pantry, and on almost all door knobs, and in my laundry room, and in my closets…I desperately tried to think of some other ways to preserve herbs for the winter months. First, I made this cute Herb Wreath. But then I still had MORE herbs to preserve.

As I was trying to think of clever ways to preserve herbs, my husband conveniently mentioned that we were running low on our store-bought fancy Herbs de Provence salt. He is the rabbit-cooking pro in our home (for example, check out his Citrus Habanero Rabbit recipe), and he also makesan amazingly delicious rabbit recipe that uses Herbs de Provence.

Let’s talk about Herbs de Provence…

For those that don’t know what Herbs de Provence is, it’s a special herb blend that is popular in French cuisine. We got our Herbs de Provencesalt blend from a loved one as a ‘thank you’ gift. They knew how much we love cooking with spices and herbs.

There are various recipes across the world for Herbs de Provence, but they all share one thing in common: lavender. When we got the Herbs de Provence salt, I had zero ideas how to use it, because the thought of cooking with lavender really stumped me. Of the two of us, my husband is the creative cook. He took it as a challenge to figure out ways to use a lavender-based herb salt in the kitchen. And wow, he has becomean Herbs de Provence top chef.

My struggles finding a good homemade Herbs de Provence Salt recipe…

Besides the fact that there are TONS of variations in Herbs de Provence recipes, I also struggled finding some good instructions for homemade herb salts. A lot of people simply state ‘mix dried herbs with salt’. The idea of drying herbs and THEN mixing them with salt seemed like a long process to me.

Why couldn’t I just mix fresh herbs with salt? I wondered if that was something you could do….and then I stumbled across Jill’s (from The Prairie Homestead)herb salt recipe. Her herb salt recipe uses FRESH herbs and salt. Huzzah!

Now that I had some courage aboutpreservingfresh herbs with salt, I made a recipe for Herbs de Provence, and used that with Jill’s instructions for a generic herb salt. The end result was this amazing homemade Herbs de Provence Salt recipe. It’s so much fresher and even better tasting than the fancy jar we were given as a gift. Because fresh wins every time. 🙂

Homemade Herbs de Provence Salt Recipe

Ingredients:

2-3 parts fresh lavender (both leaves and flowers) [see notes below]
1 part thyme
1 part rosemary
1 part sage
1 part marjoram
1 part savory
1 part oregano
1 part basil (optional)
For every 3 cups of loosely packed herbs, you need 1/2 cup coarse sea salt, kosher salt, or canning salt

Directions:

Gather your herbs from your garden. Take a moment to sit and enjoy your garden, too (this is also practical, since it lets bugs on yourharvested herbs have a chance to flee tosafety).
After basking in the joy of your garden for a bit, come back indoors and gently clean your herbs. You don’t want to put them under full-force water because you don’t want to bruise or damage them. Just gently clean off dirt and any bugs that didn’t escape yet.
Pick off the leaves on your hard/woody herb stems (esp. lavender, thyme, rosemary, oregano, and sage). I left my marjoram, savory, and basil on their stems because they were soft and would easily grind up in the herb salt recipe.
In your food processor, add 3 cups of loosely packed herb leaves. Pulse twice.
Add 1/2 cup of coarse salt (I used coarse sea salt).
Pulse a few more times. You don’t want to overdo the pulsing, because you want a coarse herb salt mix and not a paste or puree.
Once blended, move to a glass jar of your choice and move to the refrigerator. Do not use it for the first 14 days. We want those herb flavors to meld. Shake it once a day for those 14 days.
After 14 days, enjoy using this tasty herb salt on your favorite recipes. Store it in the fridge.Since the salt acts as a preservative, it should be good for at least six months…if it even lasts that long. 🙂

Notes:

**I am NOT a huge fan of the smell or taste of lavender. So I only use 2 parts lavender in this recipe. Most recipes for Herbs de Provence use at least 3 parts lavender, since it is the showcase herb in this herb blend. Make this homemade Herbs de Provence salt recipe to the preference of your own taste buds. That’s part of the fun!

**There were only a few Herbs de Provence recipes that I found that used basil. However, my garden was bursting with basil, so I used some up in this recipe.

**If you’re missing one of the ingredients from your garden, no worries, just addmore of one of the other herbs on the list. So, for example, if you’re missing savory, just add another bit of marjoram or something. Experience the joy and pride of making an herb salt blend from only herbs from your garden! It’s a marvelous feeling. 🙂

Recipes that use Herbs de Provence salt:

I encourage creativity in the kitchen when it comes to using herbs and spices. However, if you’re like me, and you need some inspiration, I’ve collected some recipes for you to try. Many of these recipes use Herbs de Provence herb blend AND salt, so obviously, you can just mix those two ingredient parts in the recipe together to just use my homemade Herbs de Provence salt recipe.