What Are Herbal Infusions?
Herbal infusions are a delightful and healthful addition to any wellness routine. Herbal infusions can be made from a wide variety of plants, each offering its own unique flavor profile and potential health benefits.
The best part? Making these infusions is incredibly easy and so rewarding.
Herbal infusions are made by steeping herbs, flowers, roots, or other plant materials in hot or cold water. This process extracts the flavors, aromas, and beneficial compounds from the plants, creating a soothing and often therapeutic drink.
Creating your own herbal infusions is surprisingly simple:
Choose your herbs: Select fresh or dried herbs of your choice.
Measure: Use about 1-2 tablespoons of dried herbs or 3-4 tablespoons of fresh herbs per cup of water. For nutritive herbs like burdock, nettles, oatstraw or linden I’ll be generous and do a large handful.
Heat water: Bring water to a hot temperature (I hardly ever let it boil).
Steep: Pour the hot or cold water over the herbs in a quart jar and put a lid on it. Let them sit overnight or and at least 5-30 minutes, depending on the herb and desired strength.
Strain and enjoy: Remove the herbs and savor your homemade infusion.
Plants that prefer to be cold infusions:
Instead of hot water, just use room temp or cold pure water.
Stinging nettles
Oatstraw
Marshmallow root
Roots & Barks:
You can decoct an already used herb: Use the strained herb to make another batch. Reheat in a small pot with 3/4 of water from quart jar and simmer on low for 20 minutes. Strain and drink. Add used herb to your garden as plant food.
Making herbal infusions is my way to slow down and connect to earths pace as well as our plant allies that show us so much wisdom and much healing.
