How to Dry Thyme 5 Easy Ways

Last Updated on August 1, 2024

Thyme is a fantastic herb to keep on hand for seasoning soups, vegetables, and lots more. Plus it’s a valuable medicinal herb (one of the best herbs for cough) and super easy to preserve. Here’s what you need to know about how to dry thyme.

WHY DRY THYME?

While you can certainly purchase little jars of dried herbs at the store, thyme is one of those absurdly easy herbs to dry yourself, so it’s an excellent choice for a simple, money-saving DIY project.

Plus when you dry herbs yourself, you’re getting them at their freshest. They haven’t been sitting on a store shelf for who knows how long.

Best of all, thyme is easy to grow and frost-tolerant, so you have a long window of time to harvest and dry it.

And it’s so satisfying to put up herbs from your garden and have them on hand whenever you need them.

Add the fact that thyme is not only medicinally useful but also delicious. It’s the perfect herb to dry for all those winter soups and herbal medicines.

Here’s more on ways to preserve herbs if you want to explore other options for preserving thyme for future use.

TYPES OF THYME TO DRY

You wouldn’t know it from shopping at the grocery store, but there are actually 350 species of thyme (in the genus Thymus) to choose from, though you’ll only find a handful readily available as seed or plant starts.

I grow loads of creeping lemon thyme as groundcover herbs, but creeping thymes can be a bit of a pain to dry and use, and I don’t want the lemon flavor in most of the soups I use thyme for.

I leave the creeping thyme to enjoy in the garden and quickly snip off lots of stems from upright common thyme instead. I give the sprigs a good rinse, and let them dry in a colander for a few hours before transferring them to my hanging herb dryer.

Common thyme (Thymus vulgaris) is sometimes known as garden thyme or English thyme. French thyme is another option, with a milder, less powerful flavor that I’ve read holds its flavor better than other types when dried.

You find can seeds for both, plus creeping thyme and winter thyme (also known as German thyme) at True Leaf Market. If you live in a colder climate, pay attention to the growing zones each variety can withstand, as some aren’t hardy above zone 5.

Other types of thyme links can also be dried, but the upright varieties will be far easier to work with. Woolly thyme is lovely (as well as a fantastic drought tolerant ground cover), but its tiny leaves make it challenging to harvest for culinary purposes.

You can find thyme seeds at most garden centers or online. Creeping thymes are also very easy to propagate as plant divisions, a great way to get free plants from friends or neighbors.

WHEN TO HARVEST THYME FOR DRYING

Thyme is a long-lasting perennial herb that you can start harvesting when it greens up in spring. Thyme will continue producing long after the first frost, so you’ll have ample opportunity to gather as much as you like.

Thyme, like most other herbs, is best harvested before flowering. But I usually harvest most of ours at the very end of the season and have been very happy with the flavor of the dried thyme we’ve enjoyed in the ensuing months.

If you have issues with shade in your garden, you’ll be pleased to know that thyme is one of dozens of herbs that grow in shade.

HOW TO DRY THYME (5 METHODS)

You have 5 options for drying thyme, described below. I prefer air drying, as it’s easy, uses no energy, and doesn’t require me to get our dehydrator out of the basement or keep an eye on the oven.

RINSE AND DRY THYME

Whichever method you choose, you first need to rinse your thyme well to get off dirt and insects. Pat it dry to remove excess moisture. Running it through a salad spinner can help get extra water off.

I recommend leaving your thyme on the stem until fully dry. Thyme’s tiny leaves are easier to crumble off once dry, and drying all those little leaves individually would mean losing a lot of them in the drying screen or dehydrator, as the holes are bigger than the thyme leaves.

You may find an inexpensive herb stripper helpful if you’re planning to preserve a lot of herbs.

Once your thyme stems are washed and patted dry, you’re ready to choose a drying method from the options below.

1. AIR DRY

The easiest, lowest-tech, but also the slowest way to dry thyme is to let it air-dry.

Air-drying herbs works best if the air in your house has pretty low humidity. If you live in a dry climate, you’re going to have the best luck with this method. However, if you’re running an air conditioner or your heat is on, you may have dry enough air to work with.

With everything else going on during the growing season, I tend to wait to till well into the fall to harvest thyme for drying. Thyme’s a tough plant that doesn’t die back until things get really cold.

So with most of the plants pretty much dead and all the garden chores taken care of, harvesting all the thyme we can use for the winter and spring is one of the last garden tasks of the season.

By then the herb dryer is all clear and ready to be filled with loads of drying thyme. Since heating season can often start in September here, our indoor air has become pretty dry by the time I get around to drying thyme in October or November.

I highly recommend a collapsible drying screen. I love that it has tons of space for laying out the many different herbs I gather each season but folds up into a small circle that I can tuck away out of season.

I’ve used it to dry huge quantities of foraged Canadian wood nettle, plantain, linden flowers, goldenrod, elderflowers, birch leaves, and so much more.

How to air-dry thyme:

If you’re using a drying screen, just lay your sprigs of thyme in a single layer so there’s plenty of airflow. I find this method to be by far the fastest way to dry the large quantities of thyme I preserve each season.

If you don’t have or don’t want to use a screen, you could tie thyme sprigs up with string into little bundles and hang them upside down in the traditional manner. You can suspend the bundle from a hook, string, or clothes hanger.

If your air is quite dry, your thyme may be fully dry in as little a few days, but it could take a week or two. If you’ve chosen the hang-dry method, it’s probably best to cover the sprigs with a loose paper bag to keep off dust during that period.

When your thyme is brittle and crispy, you can strip it and store it in an air-tight container.

2. IN A DEHYDRATOR

Of course, if you want to dry your thyme more quickly or your house is too moist for air-drying, you can use a dehydrator.

How to dry thyme in a dehydrator:

After washing and patting your thyme dry, lay sprigs on your dehydrator trays in a single layer. Set the temperature to 95 or 100 degrees and check after an hour or so. You want the thyme to be fully crispy and brittle. If the leaves are still pliable, put them back for another 30-60 minutes and check again.

The humidity of the air and the amount of water left on the thyme after rinsing can affect how long it takes to dry. It may be done in as little as an hour, or it could take up to 4 hours.

3. IN THE OVEN

Though I don’t recommend it, you can also dry thyme in your oven. You’ll need to pay attention, since the heat will likely be higher than optimal and it can easily burn.

How to dry thyme in the oven:

Lay thyme sprigs in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with a baking mat or parchment paper. If you have one of these baking sheets with racks, using it will help promote air flow and speed drying.

Set your oven to its lowest temperature and cut the heat when your oven thermometer reads 100 degrees. If your oven has a “keep warm” setting you might be able to get heat at a low temperature. You do not need to pre-heat.

You might have to turn the oven on and off repeatedly to keep it from getting cold.

Thyme should be dry in 2 to 4 hours if you’re able to keep a consistent low temperature. If you’re using higher temperatures, your thyme may dry much faster, possibly less than a half hour. Check it often to make sure you’re not burning it!

4. IN YOUR CAR

OK, I know it sounds weird, but your car actually works really well as a dehydrator. You know how warm and toasty it is when it sits in the sun, even on a day in the 40s? That warm, dry air is great for drying thyme and other herbs,

And yes, your car will absolutely reek of thyme, but there are certainly worse things it could reek of!

How to dry thyme in your car:

Park your car in the sun.

Place sprigs of thyme in a single layer on a screen or baking sheet and place them in your car until they’re brittle and fully dry.

Plan to move your thyme-filled car to a sunnier location if a tree blocks it at some point while you’re drying thyme. Depending on the temperature, the process will likely take a day or two.

5. IN THE MICROWAVE

I’m not a fan of using a microwave for drying herbs, but the pros say it works well. This method is fine if you have only a small amount of thyme you want to dry

I was surprised when New York Times food writer Kenji López-Alt pronounced microwaving the best way to preserve herbs’ flavor, but he claims that since microwaves don’t heat the plant tissue, only the water it contains, their flavors are retained better.

However, you can only dry small batches of thyme at once, so microwaving isn’t very efficient for larger batches of herb drying.

But if you’re only drying a little, here’s how to use the microwave to dry thyme:

Lay thyme sprigs on a plate lined with paper towel (or a dish towel). Cover with another layer of paper towel or dish towel.

Microwave the thyme on high in 20 or 30-second increments until it’s crispy.

The microwave wattage varies quite a bit, so an 800-watt microwave will take longer than a 1200-watt microwave.

HOW TO STORE DRIED THYME

Once your thyme is completely dry and crumbly, you can gently rub the tiny leaves from the stems onto a plate or piece of parchment paper and then transfer the leaves to a jar with a tight-fitting lid. These sweet little jars would work well and would be great if you’re giving homegrown dried herbs as gifts.

If you don’t have time to strip the leaves right away, you can put your sprigs in a ziploc bag. Many will fall on their own from the stem, and you can collect them and store them in a jar when you have time.

Be mindful that you’re likely to get a good amount of tiny stems mixed in with the dried thyme leaves. Pick them out, as they’re not pleasant to eat in your soup.

Like other dried herbs, fully dry thyme is best stored in an airtight container in a cool, dark place.

HOW TO USE DRIED THYME

This flavorful herb is so versatile. I use it in so many recipes! Thyme is my go-to for pretty much every soup I make, especially legume-based soups like vegan white bean soup and homemade split pea soup.

It’s also fantastic on fish, roasted poultry, and vegetables. I also love it in this easy yogurt dip.

On top of its wonderful flavor, thyme is a top herb for colds and flu and makes an effective home remedy for cough. Try this easy thyme tea recipe next time you need relief from respiratory symptoms.

Do you love using easy garden crops in the kitchen and home apothecary? Consider other herbs to grow in a medicinal herb garden, like lemon balm, rosemary, lavender, yarrow, and chamomile.

Pin to save this info on how to dry thyme for later!

Drying thyme photo credits in cover and pins: zia_shusha, Albisha, 5PH, mescioglu