Something shifts in how we cook at the start of June. The jars of dried thyme move to the back of the shelf. The quantities of fresh herbs in most dishes double, quietly, without anyone deciding to double them. The last thing added to a dish — the thing that goes in after the heat is off — starts to matter more than the thing added first.
This is the herb season. Not because herbs disappear in winter, but because in summer they’re at their most potent, most available, and most central to the logic of the food.
The herbs worth understanding
Basil is the most season-specific of them all. It doesn’t work dried. It doesn’t work cooked. It doesn’t work cold from the fridge. It works at room temperature, torn rather than cut, added to dishes that are just off the heat or that were never on it. The moment you try to push basil outside those parameters — blanching it, storing it in the fridge overnight, adding it too early — it goes grey and bitter and the flavour disappears. Used correctly, it transforms everything it touches: tomatoes, mozzarella, roasted peppers, pasta, bean soups.
Mint is more forgiving. It survives brief heat and cold storage better than basil, which makes it more useful across a wider range of dishes. It works in dressings, yoghurt sauces, grain salads, alongside lamb, with cucumber, in cold drinks. The key is proportionality — mint can overpower a dish if used with a heavy hand. Start with less than you think, taste, and add more.
Flat-leaf parsley is not a garnish. It’s an ingredient, and in summer it functions almost as a vegetable — added in large quantities to salads, stirred through grain dishes, blended into herb oils and salsa verdes, scattered over fish by the handful. The curly version has almost no flavour; the flat-leaf version is the only one worth buying.
Tarragon is the most overlooked of the summer herbs. It has a distinct anise flavour that’s subtle enough to work in a wide range of contexts: chicken, fish, eggs, butter sauces, cold potato salads. It works particularly well in things that have cream or butter in them — the fat carries the flavour and rounds the anise note. Use it sparingly in mixtures with other herbs, as it can take over if there’s too much.
How to use them
The most consistent error with fresh herbs is timing. Adding them at the start of cooking — when they’re going into a hot pan or a long braise — destroys the volatile oils that give them their flavour and colour. Most fresh herbs belong at the end: in the last minute of cooking, or after the heat is off, or scattered on the plate just before serving.
The exceptions are hardy herbs — thyme, rosemary, sage — which survive heat and are sometimes better cooked than raw. But basil, mint, flat-leaf parsley, tarragon, chervil, dill: all of these belong at the end or not in the heat at all.
Storage
Fresh herbs dehydrate quickly in the fridge. The best method for most soft herbs: wrap loosely in a slightly damp piece of paper towel, place in a sealed container or bag, and refrigerate. They’ll last four to five days this way. Basil is the exception — store it at room temperature with stems in a glass of water, like a small bunch of flowers, away from direct sunlight. Refrigerating basil turns it black.
The herbs you reach for in summer are the ones that don’t survive cooking. They belong at the end. Get the timing right and everything else follows.