Last Saturday, while scouting around at a local farmers market, I found an abundance of basil plants that looked and smelled absolutely magnificent!
Fresh basil can be used in a variety of ways in our daily lives, whether we are plucking it straight off of the plant to add to our pizza or salad, drying it for later use, freezing it to quickly add to any sauce, or cooking and baking with it today.
Basil is an herb from the aromatic (fragrant) lamiaceae family, which also includes mint, sage, lavender, marjoram, oregano, thyme and rosemary.
There are many different types of basil that provide a variety of flavors.
The basil grown in my area is the ocimum basilicum variety also known as St. Joseph’s Wort, Bush, Sweet, Common, or Genovese Basil.
Most of us have had the eye catching and palate pleasing caprese salad starring beautiful basil and we often hear about it being used as an herb in cultural foods such as Italian Pesto and Thai Basil Chicken.
However, how many of you have had basil ice cream, lemon basil sorbet, basil-lemon granita, basil tea, or creamy basil zucchini soup? (Recipes Available below)
You may be asking yourself, what, besides flavor, can basil add to my daily diet?
Let's look a little deeper into basil to find out what else it can do for you.
Bountiful Basil Functional Food Facts
run to the farmers market and grab a bunch of basil today to see what you're inspired to create with it!