Celery leaves are a highly nutritious part of celery that is often just thrown away as most people only eat the celery stems. Fresh and dried celery leaves have many purposes and are a flavorful part of celery.
Can you Eat Celery Leaves?
Yes, you can eat celery leaves. Celery leaves are full of flavor and are fantastic for adding to soups and stocks. I always throw leaves in a roast pan to enhance the gravy flavor or to the crock pot when making stock.
Celery leaves can also be eaten raw in salads, used fresh as any other fresh herb would be, or preserved to be used later on. You can also make celery leaf pesto by replacing the basil. Usually people will have a lot of them left over after using the celery stalks but the good news is that they are super easy to preserve and are great to use later on.
Often homegrown or farmers market celery will have a stronger flavor than store bought so less is more!
What to do with Celery Leaves
- Label your lovely celery leaves and use them as herbs for soups and stock making!
- After drying the celery leaves, store them as you would most herbs, in a cool dry place. Shelf life tends to be about a year.
- Combine celery leaves with kosher salt to make homemade celery salt.
- Use the small, tender celery leaves as garnish for soups and stews.
How to Dry Celery Leaves
- Cut off the celery leaves from celery stem.
- Dry the celery leaves after washing them.
- When air drying or dehydrating celery leaves to preserve, make sure everything is completely dry to avoid potential spoilage.
- Place on a clean drying rack or plate, allowing space between leaves.
- After 5 days or so the celery leaves should be dry. After 2 days rotate them if not using a drying rack (for adequate air circulation).
- Once dry place on a large plate or in a bowl to crumble into smaller pieces. Crumble the leaves and discard the stem. They should break easily and if they don’t they aren’t dry enough yet and allow to dry for a couple more days.
- Using a wide mouth funnel, place crushed leaves into a mason jar or other storage container and cover with a lid.
Can you Freeze Celery Leaves?
Yes, you can freeze celery leaves in oil the way you would with any other flavor enhancing herb. Read how to freeze basil and replace the basil with the celery leaves. You can also just wash and toss the leaves into a bag and grab as needed. Make sure they are dry first otherwise they’ll clump together easier. I often toss celery leaves in with other veggie scraps to make soup stock or broth later on.
What is your favorite way to use celery leaves?
Thanks for educating on how to dry celery
Yes I grew a lot of celery this year, so I will try to dry the leaves to use in what ever
Thanks so much
Dry celery leaves are also great in egg salad.
Great information. Easy to keep celery for future use.
This contained exactly the information I wanted. Thank you for the time and effort you put into sharing!
Can I harvest the celery greens without actually cutting the stalk from the plant? I would like to use the greens at the top and let the stalk grow a bit larger.
I don’t have a dehydrator. Could you dry them in the oven ?? On a tray loooow heat??
Thanks in advance!