Did you know that one of the quickest ways to dry fresh herbs is actually your air fryer? You don’t even need a special dehydrate setting to use it! Today, I’m going to show you how to dry mint in the air fryer for an easy way to preserve it for later.
Why You Need This Recipe
If you’re anything like me, I’ve always got a bunch of peppermint left over after the holiday baking sprees, and any time I have a cocktail party. Maybe you’ve just had a bountiful harvest from your backyard herb garden!
Why waste perfectly good mint? Now you don’t have to, since it takes just a few minutes to dry it out thanks to your air fryer. You can save your mint for use later in marinade, soups, drinks, desserts, or anything else you can dream up!
Should you not own an air fryer yet (gasp!) or want to try out both methods to see which one you like better, make sure to check out my guide how to dry mint in the microwave as well. It’s an equally quick and easy alternative!
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What You’ll Need
- 3-4 stems of fresh mint (or about 20 large leaves)
Recipe Ingredients and Substitutions
- Mint. This recipe uses fresh mint leaves (and that’s it)! However, that said, it works equally well for Peppermint, Spearmint, Chocolate mint, or cocktail garnishing mints such as Mojito mint. Really, whatever you happen to have on hand is going to work great!
How to Dry Mint Leaves in an Air Fryer
- Wash and dry your mint leaves
- Preheat your air fryer to 350°F
- Place your mint in a single layer in the preheated air fryer basket
- Add a trivet or rack over top of the leaves, or bind the stems together with a heat safe tie to prevent the mint from flying around in the air fryer
- Cook on the air fry setting for 3 minutes at 350°F, then check for doneness. Leaves should appear dry and break easily when squeezed gently
- If additional time is needed, add in 1-minute increments
- Separate the leaves from the stems by either gently plucking them off, or by squeezing your hand around the stem over a plate. The latter should only be done if you want crushed leaves
- Store dried mint leaves in an airtight container, zippered bag, or spice jar for best preservation of flavor
Recipes to Use Dried Mint In
- Peppermint Patty Fudge
- Peppermint Blossom Cookies
- Mint Chocolate Bark
- Raspberry Mint Tequila Smash
Recipe FAQs
Do You Wash Mint Before Drying?
It is highly recommended that you wash mint before drying.
While technically not absolutely necessary, there’s a lot of benefits to doing so. Washing your mint (or any herb for that matter) gets rid of dirt, dead leaves, pests, and even chemicals if it was commercially grown.
That way, when you begin drying your mint, you’re ensuring that you’re only getting what you actually want to consume with your herbs.
What is the Best Way to Dry Mint?
While this is subjective, the quickest ways to dry mint are the microwave or air fryer. These two methods take the shortest amount of time, don’t noticeably harm flavor over other drying methods, and get you a reliable dry that makes your herbs safe for storage.
Air drying takes much longer, though arguably you don’t have to do much other than string up bunches of herbs. However, if you live in a humid area, you’ll never be able to dry your leaves out enough to prevent molding.
The oven and dehydrator are great methods, but each takes several hours. Plus, you can technically burn your leaves unless you pay good attention to them in the oven. The time and monitoring required just don’t make a method I usually choose.
How to Dry Mint Leaves for Tea?
Mint tea is best made with whole leaves, or at least large pieces. If you need to break them to fit into a tea bag or ball, you’ll get the best flavor from breaking them at time of use from a full leaf.
Instead of cooking your mint leaves on the stem, you’ll want to remove them ahead of time and just dry the leaves themselves. This way, you don’t have to go through the tedious process of trying to separate them from the stems without breaking them later.
That said, for the air fryer drying method you’ll absolutely require a rack of some kind that fits inside it to secure the leaves and prevent them from blowing into the heating element and burning. You won’t have the additional weight of the stems to help here.
Recipe Pro Tips For the Best Dried Mint
- Using the rack or trivet in the air fryer is designed to keep the mint leaves from flying around. They can get up into the heating element and burn if not contained. If your air fryer doesn’t have some sort of rack you can use, bind the stems together with heat safe ties of some kind
- It’s important to keep your mint in as close to a single layer as possible. If not, you’ll end up with wet spots after the initial cooking cycle. If this happens, make sure to shake or otherwise separate the leaves before adding additional cooking time to eliminate the wet areas
- It normally takes me about 4 minutes in my Ninja Foodi Dual Zone air fryer to completely dehydrate mint. However, it may take a slightly different amount of time for other brands and sizes of air fryer
- Note that your entire kitchen is going to smell like mint during this process (the hot air just throws the scent around) so be prepared for the bold aroma!
- The mint leaves will naturally brown when drying in the air fryer. For a greener leaf, I recommend using my microwave mint drying method I mentioned earlier instead
Storage and Use Tips
- This amount of fresh mint leaves should net you around 1 tsp of crushed when dried (or just 20 dried whole leaves if you leave them intact)
- Crushed dried mint is best for use in baking, seasoning, sauces, or ice cream. Whole leaves are ideal for mint tea and garnishes
- Dried mint has a shelf life of about a year, if stored properly in an airtight container away from direct sunlight (like a spice cabinet). After that time, it’s still safe to consume, but far less potent
Final Thoughts
Drying mint in the air fryer is one of the quickest and easiest methods to dehydrate your fresh mint. Whether it’s your overly abundant herb garden or a pile leftover from your holiday baking endeavors, you’ll be able to safely save it for later.
This mint recipe is one of my favorite practical air fryer recipes, since it allows for the preservation of extra herbs in just 3-4 minutes, so you never need to feel like you’re wasting good ingredients again.
Dehydrated herbs like dried mint are so useful for a variety of dishes, too! Season sauces, stews, frosting, baked goods, cocktails, and more with this cool flavor.
How to Dry Mint in the Air Fryer (Without Dehydrator)
Equipment
- Air fryer rack (or similar, like a trivet or heat safe ties)
Ingredients
- 4-5 stems Mint (about 20 leaves) washed and dried
Instructions
- Preheat your air fryer to 350°F
- Place your mint in a single layer in the preheated air fryer basket4-5 stems Mint (about 20 leaves)
- Add a trivet or rack over top of the leaves, or bind the stems together with a heat safe tie to prevent the mint from flying around in the air fryer
- Cook on the air fryer setting for 3 minutes at 350°F, then check for doneness. Leaves should appear dry and break easily when squeezed gently. If additional time is needed, add in 1-minute increments, separating any bunched leaves to reduce wet spots
- Separate the leaves from the stems by either gently plucking them off, or by squeezing your hand around the stem over a plate (only if you want crushed leaves)
- Store dried mint leaves in an airtight container, zippered bag, or spice jar for best preservation of flavor
Notes
- Average total drying time for fresh mint is about 4 minutes in a Ninja Dual Zone air fryer. Other brands and sizes of air fryer may vary slightly
- Dry in batches if necessary. If you overlap your mint leaves too much you’ll get wet pockets
- This amount of fresh mint leaves should give you around 1 tsp dried mint (when/if crushed) depending on the size of your leaves
- Crush dried mint for use in baking, seasoning, or ice cream. Whole leaves are best for mint tea and garnishes
- Dried mint keeps for about 1 year if properly stored. After that, while still safe to consume, it significantly loses potency
Nutrition
