Homemade Italian Seasoning
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I love to grow herbs and dry them and make Italian seasoning blend to use year-round. It’s super easy to dry herbs and it gives you flavor for months. I love making my own spice blends and flavorings and you can too!
I love the flavors in Italian seasoning. They are delicious in pasta, in rubs or marinades for meat, and make soup taste amazing. I use a ton of it throughout the year. I make my own taco seasoning and ranch seasoning as well, but I love that I can actually grow everything in the Italian seasoning right in the garden.
What’s in Italian seasoning
Italian seasoning has oregano, rosemary, parsley, sage, thyme and sometimes basil or marjoram. I love to grow all of those herbs in my herb garden, so it makes it easy to make my own mix. Thyme is by far my favorite herb to grow and use. How much of each herb you use is totally up to your tastes. I prefer a mix that is mainly based on oregano with less of the others added.
Growing Italian herbs
Herbs are really easy to grow and that’s why I grow a lot of them. I like something that is heat tolerant and hardy in drought because we have plenty of that in the summers in Oklahoma. Herbs make me feel like a real success. They pretty much grow themselves. Most of them winter over with the exception of basil. Many of them grow for years after you plant them once and the ones that don’t either reseed themselves or grow for two years before they go to seed and die. These plants are called biennials.
Italian spices
Italian flavorings give you that familiar spaghetti or pizza flavor for any dish. Just add some garlic and you have your flavor profile set.
Italian seasoning blend
The first step in making your own Italian seasoning blend is to cut massive quantities of herbs from your garden. It takes quite a bit of fresh herbs to make a small jar of dried herbs, so gather way more than you think you’ll need. Herbs can tend to take over, so you’ll probably have plenty growing.
Next, strip the herbs from the stems. We like to do it over a big paper bag so we can strip each stem and drop the leaves into the bag and then throw the stem into the compost pile. You can dry the herbs on the stems, but it makes it really hard to not get stems in your finished product. If you want to do it that way, cut the stems and just tie the bundles up and hang them upside down until dry.
I put the bag of leaves in my pantry and every day I shake the bag to give it a stir. In a couple of weeks, the Italian seasoning will almost be ready. The herb leaves will be nice and crunchy. Take handfuls of the leaves and toss them in the blender. Pulse them until they are small but not powdered. You still want to have flakes to them.
You can also make a gorgeous herb wreath, check out how here.
Italian homemade
Then you can put it in pretty jars to use later or give it as a wonderful, homemade gift that people will love to receive.
I love using my Italian seasoning mix to make homemade recipes:
- spaghetti sauce
- Homemade Copycat Olive Garden Dressing Dry Mix Recipe
- Easy Slow Cooker Meatball Subs Recipe
- lasagna
- pizza
- air fryer pork tenderloin
- Pepperoni Pull Apart Bread
- pepperoni pizza pasta bake
- Easy Cheesy Pepperoni Pizza Sliders (On Hawaiian Rolls)
- Air Fryer Pita Pizza
- Pepperoni Meatball Roll Ups
- Pepperoni Cream Cheese Roll Ups
Homemade Italian Seasoning Mix
Ingredients
- 1 c dried oregano
- 1/2 c dried thyme
- 2 T dried marjoram
- 1 T dried rosemary
- 1/2 c dried parsley
- 1/4 c dried sage
Instructions
- Mix herbs well and place in small airtight jars. Herbs can be adjusted as desired.
I love it when the herbs I use in my spice blends are home grown and organic. Here’s how to grow:
- How to grow sage
- How to Grow Italian Parsley
- How to Grow Marjoram
- You can even grow your own spices to make mixes.
Also, check out our: