Sage: 46 Things To Do With Fresh Sage

Our sage bush is flourishing. I love cooking with fresh herbs and filling our freezer with garden fresh produce for the coming winter months. Sage is a wonderful addition to any herb garden for many reasons.

Tonight we are having Sage Butter Biscuits, Sauteed Carrots, and Buttermilk Herb Chicken with fresh sage from the garden. These recipes were found at Once A Month Meals, a fun simple way to stock my freezer full of fresh ingredients from the garden for quick nutritious dinners on busy nights. For a step by step instruction on how to use the abundance of your own garden to stock your freezer, visit Red Gryphon Tavern’s Yellow Squash from the Garden: Recipes and How-To Store.

Sage has an interesting history and has been used in just about every culture of the world. It has been used medicinally for snake bites, sore throats, fevers, indigestion, and diabetes. You can read more about Sage’s History at Garden Guides. If you are interested in digging deeper into the uses of sage and how to incorporate this and other herbs into your life, I highly recommend the Herbal Academy. If you’re curious but unsure, start by previewing a Lesson from the Introductory Herbal Course.

Whenever I want to experiment with a new ingredient I go first to the book shelf and pull out The Flavor Bible.

The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative ChefsThe Vegetarian Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity with Vegetables, Fruits, Grains, Legumes, Nuts, Seeds, and More, Based on the Wisdom of Leading American Chefs

At the top of the page regarding Sage, there is a quote from Jerry Traunfeld author of The Herbfarm

Sage has a much better flavor when it is cooked first. We will cook it in butter, olive oil, or bacon fat.

The Flavor Bible goes on to list tips and ingredients to which it pairs well. Here are just a few of them: apples, blueberries, bread, cheese, chicken, duck, eggplant, fish, french cuisine, lovage, mushrooms, rosemary, savory, soups, winter squash, etc. This book has become an essential part of our kitchen.

Sage Recipes:

1. Breaded and Fried Light Appetizer (if you have an air-fryer use the french fry setting)
2. Butter Biscuits
3. Sauteed Carrots
4. Pineapple Salsa
5. Pumpkin Hummus
6. Paleo Brown Butter Mushrooms
7. Fried Manchego Cheese Rolls
8. Baked Figs with Goat Cheese
9. Roasted Potatoes
10. Pesto Grilled Cheese with Gruyere
11. Mushroom Fontina Flatbread
12. Buttermilk Herb Chicken
13. Chickpea, Spinach & Squash Gnocchi
14. Mustard Maple Pork Tenderloin
15. Brown Butter Sauce for Pasta or Butternut Squash
16. Butternut Squash and Apple Soup
17. Shortbread Cookies
18. Gourmet Popsicles
19. Sweet Potato Scones
20. Peach Lemonade
21. Pineapple Mojitos
22. Blueberry Ginger Mojitos
23. Blackberry Kentucky Mule
24. Blackberry Old Fashioned
25. Smoking Blackberry Margarita
26. Infused Waters

Sage Medicinal Use:

1. Homemade Cough Syrup
2. Tea: Benefits & Recipe
3. Immune Boosting Garden Herb Stock

Sage for Cleaning:

1. Infused Vinegar - an antibacterial cleaner
2. Grow to keep away mosquitos

Sage Crafts:

1. How to Make a Smudge Stick
2. DIY Herb Wreath
3. Herbal Swag (this is an item for sale at William Sonoma, but I’m fairly confident it would be simple to replicate with twine and plenty of dried herbs)
4. How to Make Your Home Smell Like Summer
5. DIY Sugar Scrub
6. DIY Natural Room Scents
7. Homemade Soap
8. Candle Making with Herbs
9. Herb Centerpiece
10. DIY Herb and Spice Firestarters (sage gives the added bonus of keeping mosquitos away)

Sage Storage:

1. Freeze & Preserve Fresh Herbs in Olive Oil
2. How to Dry without a Dehydrator
3. Herb Infused Honey
4. Herb Butter
5. Herbal Finishing Salts

What would you add to this list? Tell us in the comments and join us in the Facebook Group Finding Joy in Every Day as we journey together in making life more beautiful and our moments more intentional. And of course, if you missed last week’s post on mint just click the image below to catch up.