True Natural Beauty comes from within...

True Natural Beauty comes from within...
Welcome, to my natural bath / beauty and clean eating blog, where nature is our pantry....take a few quiet moments to enjoy free recipes and tutorials using natural ingredients. Have questions about recipes or where to find these ingredients? Put your question in the comment box and I will be happy to answer .............Anna

Thursday, May 16, 2013

How to Infuse Herbs in Oil using a crock pot

How to infuse your lovely natural oil with herbs, crock-pot method.
updated Feb 2017

I wanted olive oil infused with fresh rosemary but am too impatient to do the solar infused method of putting the oil in a mason jar, adding the rosemary ( or herb of choice ) and waiting the weeks necessary for the miracle to happen. Impatience has always been my down fall. Ask my husband.  

I had heard about the stove top method, that intrigued me, but when I read about the crock-pot method I knew I had found my nirvana.

Here's How:
You will need a crock-pot, use one that is reliable in its temperature and one that you are familiar with. Why?   
Because you do not want a crock-pot that will overheat and cook your oil rather than infuse it.

I put in 2 cups of olive oil and two handfuls of rosemary,  how strong you want your infusion determines how much herb you put in. I wanted mine strong.


I then stirred the oil and rosemary.  ( Don't rinse your rosemary and throw it in the pot wet. )


You want to heat your oil slowly.  I suggest keeping the oil temp between 120 - 130 F
I got out my thermometer and kept an eye on it. It did go up to 140 F at one point, I turned off the crock for a bit. All was fine.

Let your oil simmer for an hour or so,  then let it cool down.  Heat it up again, let cool again.  If your crock-pot is steady in it's temp and will not overheat you can set it and let it heat for a few hours now.

When done, allow oils to cool.


Strain oil through a cheese cloth, a clean kitchen towel or nylon stocking. Squeeze all the oil out of the herbs.


You now have a lovely herbal infused oil.  Use your oil as you normally would in your bath and body products.  Mine is intended for soap.

This method worked great.

Method #  2
Another way I've seen herbal infusions in the crock-pot is to simply put herbs into a small mason jar, fill jar with your oil, put lid on, place jar in bottom of crock-pot. Then fill crock pot with water half way up the mason jar.  Crock-pot set to low.  Allow to heat for several hours.  Strain your herbs, and enjoy
your herbal infusion.

Enjoy.....Anna




4 comments:

Unknown said...

I love the idea of using the jar in the crock pot. I'm trying it today!

Anna from Natures Home Spa said...

Emmet Street Creations, yea, it works great. I just used 2 smaller jars and infused lavender buds and calendula in grapeseed. The lavender smells lovely. And the calendula color is gorgeous.

Blossom Hills said...

Like you, I am impatient, so this sounds like an ideal method for me. Do you use fresh or dried herbs?
Mariella

Anna from Natures Home Spa said...

Hi Blossom Hills,
I used fresh herbs from an obliging neighbors yard! My infusions are used for soap making. You can use dried or fresh herbs for soap, but if you are infusing oils to use as a culinary oil, you need to use dried herbs.
Hope this helps!
Anna

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