Ingredients · Herb

Parsley

Petroselinum crispum · Apiaceae (carrot family)

Parsley
The most taken-for-granted herb in any kitchen, and the one doing more work than it gets credit for: parsley is not a garnish, it is the clean green note that lifts everything heavy sitting beside it. Dried parsley is milder than fresh and keeps its colour, which is exactly why it belongs in a blend — the green flecks in a poultry seasoning or an Italian herb mix are usually this. Seven products carry it.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partLeaf
KindHerb
CaffeineCaffeine-free
Where it is fromGreece, the Balkans, North Africa (native range)
TasteClean, fresh and mildly grassy — green rather than aromatic

How to use it

Add dried parsley early enough to soften — it is one of the few herbs that benefits from a few minutes in liquid. In poultry seasoning, Italian blends, Greek seasoning and chimichurri. Over potatoes with butter. In compound butter, scrambled eggs, potato soup, meatballs and breadcrumbs. For a garnish, use fresh; for a blend, use dried.

With food

Potato and butter. Lemon and garlic. Fish and shellfish. Eggs. Grains and bulgur. Tomato and cucumber. Beef and lamb. Breadcrumbs.

With spices

Thyme and bay, the bouquet garni. Sage, savory and marjoram for poultry. Garlic and lemon peel for gremolata. Oregano. Black pepper.

With tea

Not a tea ingredient.

Its story

Where it comes from

Native to Greece, the northwestern Balkan Peninsula, Algeria and Morocco. Linnaeus gave its wild habitat as Sardinia, from which it was brought to England and apparently first cultivated there in 1548, though it was in use in England in Anglo-Saxon times. The name is Greek: petroselinon, rock celery. No lot origin named.

What happened

In ancient Greece the same green crowned athletes and wreathed the dead. Pliny records that parsley made the victors' wreath at the Nemean Games, and it was the Isthmian crown too — while tombs were decked with it, so that saying a sick man needed only parsley meant he was not going to recover. Plutarch tells how Timoleon of Corinth turned that on its head: marching to battle, his soldiers met mules laden with parsley and took it as an omen of death, and Timoleon told them it was a victory crown arriving early, wreathed his own head with it, and his officers and men followed. Closer to a kitchen garden, parsley is famously slow to germinate, and English and Welsh gardeners had an explanation: the seed goes to the Devil and back before it comes up — three times in Devon, seven in Sussex, nine in Herefordshire. Another saying: where missus is master, the parsley grows faster. At the Passover Seder it is karpas, dipped in salt water.

On the shelf with it

Sold on its own, and in these blends.

Every ingredient in the shop

Explore

Other ways in

Ingredients Every plant, seed, bark and salt in the shop on one page — what it is, why it is in the blend, and where it comes from. See them all Collections Every shelf in the shop on one page — teas by leaf and flavour, spices by kind and cuisine. Open any shelf to see what is on it. Browse the shelves The Showroom The whole shop on one floor — every tea, spice and blend, filtered by what you are after, with the basket beside you. Open the Showroom Elsewhere Seventeen short trips — a place, a moment, a feeling — each with the teas and spices that get you there. Take a trip