Cooking with Fresh Mint – Kalyn's Kitchen

I love fresh mint in summer salads and other interesting dishes, and this post contains my favorite fresh mint cooking ideas! This contains fun recipes for using fresh mint, plus tips for growing mint without taking over your garden!

Cook with fresh mint to try out some recipes later!

I’m a longtime gardening fanatic and my blog is full of recipes using garden produce and fresh herbs. Several years ago, I wrote a series of blog posts called Cooking Tips for Gardeners, highlighting an ingredient and sharing my favorite recipes using it.

This summer I decided to update these posts to make them more useful and to include existing recipes. So today let’s encourage mint that starts very early in the garden and lasts long into fall.

Mint is something everyone can grow successfully, and the distinct flavor adds a something extra something extra to many dishes! I love mint, have a few favorite ways to use it, and over the past few years, i’ve really broadened my horizons with this hearty herb. So here are some ideas about Cooking with fresh mint Recipes using this delicious herb.

Tips for growing mint:

Mint is a hardy perennial that grows like a weed, but there are a few things to know about growing it. First, and most important of all, if you are growing mint for the first time, it is very important to place it where the plant is contained or your entire yard will be taken over by mint. I used to have my mint in a little raised bed cut into thirds, so my mint is contained in the middle section. I also used those plastic borders that you hit in the ground to control mint, and they grow well in pots.

Mint is easy to grow from seedIt can start at any time during the growing season. But if you want to enjoy some mint right away, just pick some mint plants from a gardening center to get you started. You don’t need a lot of plants, because as I mentioned above, the mint will spread out and take up as much space as possible! It is also a relatively fast growing plant.

Prune mint if you are growing it!

The only other thing to know about growing mint is to prune the ends of the stems when the plant begins producing seeds. (Trimming also helps the plant produce more leaves, so cut your mint back often!) Mint can be frozen If you want to continue using it when the growing season of fresh herbs is over.

What foods come with fresh mint flavor?

Mint complements many other flavors, especially summer foods like tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers, melons, melons, and peppers. It goes well with other summer herbs such as parsley, cilantro, basil, and dill, and also with citrus flavors such as lemon and lime, spices such as cumin, sumac, ginger, garlic, and curry powders or pastes. But mint is more versatile than many people realize, and I also love mint with beans, carrots, feta cheese, chicken, mushrooms, radishes, shrimp, mild-flavored fish, and herb-infused sauces.

Recipes using fresh mint to try:

Middle Eastern tomato salad It’s one of my all-time favorites using mint and this is a recipe I make every summer when tomatoes and cucumbers are in good shape and fresh mint and parsley are plentiful.

this Mediterranean salad with purslane and mint It’s something I can eat all summer long. This salad is very tasty with sumac and lemon dressing and is full of healthy ingredients. (And if you’re not familiar with purslane, it’s a very healthy and tasty plant that grows like a weed; check it out!)

Baked Summer Squash with Lemon, Mint and Feta A great recipe for summer squash, roasted with mint and lemon and then tossed with tangy feta cheese! I was skeptical about the idea of cooking mint squash, but this worked out great for me!

Mint adds a nice touch to this Moroccan cabbage slaw with carrots and mint And the delicious sauce contains lemon and cumin!

Kalin tabbouleh with almonds It’s a recipe I’ve made and enjoyed for many years. For now, this is a great source of carbs for me, but I use a generous amount of almonds and lots of mint and parsley to balance out the bulgur wheat making it a more carb-conscious version of tabbouleh.

Grilled eggplant with feta and herbs A great way to cook eggplant, the combination of mint and feta is great over roasted eggplant.

Lebanese fattoush salad It’s one of the first salads I think of when I eat fresh mint and parsley, and I use my favorite Low carb pita bread For this. And if you’ve ever enjoyed fattoush at a restaurant, you’ll love this easy recipe to make at home!

Thai Turkish Lettuce Wrap A great dish, and the fresh mint shines here along with the other Thai flavours!

this Tomato and cucumber salad with mint and feta It is a slow boil classic and there is a special preparation method here that really brings out the flavours.