French thyme is a variety of English thyme that has narrower, grey-green leaves and a slightly sweeter flavor. It is often preferred by chefs, and is excellent for seasoning meat, fish, soup, and vegetables. Just remember that its English counterpart is not only more robust, but has better cold tolerance.
What type of thyme is best for cooking?
The green form is the best for culinary use. Known for its beautiful rose-purple flowers that bloom in early summer, caraway thyme (Thymus herba-barona) has a mild caraway flavor. It is a hardy perennial that grows 2 to 5 inches tall, with narrow green leaves.
Is English thyme the same as thyme?
English thyme is also referred to as garden thyme or common thyme. French thyme has upright stems with small, narrow gray-green leaves. French thyme is also called summer thyme and it offers a flavor that is slightly subtler than that of English thyme.
What is another name for French thyme?
Thymus vulgaris (common thyme, English thyme, summer thyme, winter thyme, French thyme, or garden thyme) is a commonly used culinary herb.
What is English thyme used for?
English thyme is a low-growing plant with fragrant leaves. This herb goes well with just about everything. Add it (fresh or dried) to blended herb mixtures, or use in soups, sauces, beans, meat dishes, and more. It’s also a great addition to potpourri or homemade soap.
What is French thyme good for?
The flowers, leaves, and oil are commonly used to flavor foods and are also used as medicine. Thyme contains chemicals that might help bacterial and fungal infections. It also might help relieve coughing and have antioxidant effects.
Can you cook with French thyme?
French thyme has a softer and fresher taste than Mediterranean thyme, but can still hold its own in hearty dishes. Thyme is particularly great added to stews, soups, clam chowder, fish, hearty sauces, gumbos, stuffing, chicken, pork, and many vegetable dishes.
Can you eat all varieties of thyme?
All thymes (and there are over 350 species in the genus Thymus) are edible and this includes varieties usually thought of as ornamental or medicinal.
Is French thyme invasive?
Thyme can be easily propagated by getting healthy and mature stems, cuttings or divisions from a mature, healthy and well established plant. Read more. Choosing the right spot for planting our thymes is important, as it is a highly invasive plant that can extend to unwanted parts of our property.
Does all thyme taste the same?
There are two popular varieties of thyme; common thyme and lemon thyme. These are the two most often used in cooking. As you might expect, the lemon thyme has a distinct lemon flavor and aroma.
Is drinking thyme tea good for you?
Thyme tea is best known for relieving ailments such as colds, flu and tonsillitis, which love to spoil our winters. Rich in phenol, a powerful antiseptic, thyme tea can also help soothe sore throats.
Is French thyme oregano?
There are also many different varieties of thyme, and each has a different flavor. The closest you’ll find to matching oregano is French thyme or English thyme.
Is English thyme an annual or perennial?
perennial
A low-growing hardy perennial, thyme is a fragrant herb with small, fragrant leaves and thin, woody stems. The culinary varieties are evergreen. Thyme comes in over fifty varieties with different fragrances and flavors. Fresh or English thyme are used most often in cooking.
Does thyme lower blood pressure?
Thyme is a flavorful herb packed with numerous healthy compounds. Rosmarinic acid is one such compound. Research has linked it to many benefits, such as reduced inflammation and blood sugar levels, as well as increased blood flow. It may also help reduce blood pressure ( 25 , 26 ).
How do you trim thyme so it keeps growing?
In late fall, after the first frost, select one-third of the oldest and woodiest stems on your thyme plant. Using sharp, clean shears, cut these stems back by half. Repeat the process the next year until your thyme plant has returned to growing younger, more tender stems all over the plant.
Does thyme lower blood sugar?
The results obtained showed that thyme honey or olive oil, and especially their combination, improved significantly the blood glucose levels and they protect against metabolic changes and the complications induced by diabetes.
Can you drink thyme tea everyday?
Prepare it as a tea. Put a teaspoon of thyme in boiling water, let it stand for 10 minutes and then strain. Add a drop of lemon juice to enhance its disinfectant qualities. You can drink up to three cups a day.
Is thyme an anti-inflammatory?
Thyme has anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and antiseptic properties, which is why it has long been used to help heal cuts, bruises, and scrapes. 5 Products that contain thyme can be applied topically to help speed along the healing process, and consuming thyme helps reduce inflammation in the body.
Can you eat thyme stems?
The stems of thyme are edible but are typically too woody to enjoy. The leaves are really what you are after, but leaving the leaves attached to the stem saves prep time. You can just remove and discard the stem and any attached leaves after cooking.
Can you eat thyme leaves?
Cooking With Fresh Thyme
Fresh thyme can be added to a recipe whole with the stem, or the leaves can be removed from the stem and then sprinkled into a dish. If a recipe calls for a “sprig” of thyme, the leaves and stem should be kept intact.
Can you freeze fresh thyme?
Here’s how: Wash the herbs (still on their branches), dry them thoroughly, strip the leaves from the branches, and put them in labeled plastic zipper-type freezer bags. With herbs such as rosemary and thyme, you don’t even need to strip the leaves from the branches. Press out all the air, seal and freeze.