Many recipes call for chopping herbs but the problem with chopping them on a cutting board is that a lot of the aroma and the essential oils of the herbs stay on the cutting board. Have you noticed the greenish color of your cutting board after you chop parsley for example? Well, a lot of the good stuff stays on the cutting board instead of flavoring your dish. Here is what we have heard French chefs say over the years (and French grandmothers too!) and it’s been our practice in the Art of the Home kitchens as well:

Il vaut mieux ciseler les herbes – It’s better to chop herbs with a pair of scissors

2 Cooking Tips to Chop Herbs and Preserve their Aroma

They would say that you are “injuring” (vous blessez) the herbs by chopping them. So check below for Art of the Home cooking tips on how to chop herbs and get the most out of your culinary herbs rich flavors.

2 Cooking Tips to Chop Herbs and Preserve their Aroma

Art of the Home Cooking Tips

Many of our French recipes call for herbes ciselées (snipped herbs) so what we prefer to do (for parsley, chives, basil, mint, etc) is to use a pair of kitchen scissors and snip them rather than chop them. We do a couple of things depending on what we are doing:

1. To sprinkle chop herbs on a dish, we simply snip the herbs right on top of the dish (easy clean up, that’s a plus!). That’s what we did to add flavor just before we served our salmon quiche loaf last week.
2. To chop bigger quantities or if we need very finely chopped herbs, we simply put our herbs inside a glass (or Pyrex measuring cup) and start snipping – fun and therapeutic too!

 
With both methods, you extract all the aroma and essential oils of the herbs so it is enjoyed inside your dish and not by your cutting board – and voilà!