Chive oil is one of the easiest herbal oils to make. It tastes great drizzled on salads, carrots, potatoes and other vegetables. This simple recipe will teach you how to make chive oil in a few minutes but the recipe must sit for about a week to allow the flavors to mingle. And, if you have an abundance of chives growing in your kitchen garden, this is a terrific way to use them.
Herbal Oils
Making chive oil is similar to making any herbal oils. You must mash or macerate the herbs and infuse them into the vegetable oil base. Maceration, or the act of smashing, smushing or crushing the herbs releases their tastes and flavors into the oil base. In this recipe, we use a blender, which speeds the process along.
Growing Chives in the Garden
Chives are a spring garden staple. Here in zone 6B, the chives plants I added to my garden in 2015 are still growing strong. I now have two plants – I divided the parent plant when pulling it up to pull out the wire grass growing among its roots and then planted two portions, which grew into two sturdy chive plants in my garden. It is easy to grow chives from seed and you can grow them indoors as well as in your raised bed garden or backyard vegetable garde.
Chives are related to onions and are part of the allium family, so your infused chive oil will have a lovely onion-garlic flavor that makes it a favorite for salad dressings. I’ve also used them in chive salt, which is an herbal-infused salt. That tasted great on my sweet potato french fries recipe.
How to Make Chive Oil
To make chive oil you will need:
- 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup washed, chopped fresh chives
Rinse the chives under cool, running water. Chop coarsely. Add the chopped chives and olive oil to a blender and process until smooth. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth and retain the oil. Discard the chive solids. Pour the strained oil mixture into an airtight glass container. Store at room temperature for up to two months.
Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.
