How to Dry Mullein Leaves: 3 Easy Ways
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So you’ve found mullein and now you want to know how to dry mullein leaves. But HOW?!
I gotchu. Here’s my guide for how to harvest and then dry mullein leaves for medicinal and/or herbal use. And before you start whining you don’t have a freeze dryer and you can’t, I’ll let you in on a little secret.
First. Can’t died in the poor house. Knock that mentality out.
Second. Freeze dryers, while an amazing tool, did NOT exist in the pioneer days. So, there’s obviously perfectly fine ways to dry and preserve mullein leaf for later that doesn’t involve a several thousand dollar investment. I don’t own a freeze dry. I own a food dehydrator. Those are not the same thing and many folks watch my reels where I am DEHYDRATING food and lose their minds over me being “out of touch” and sharing unattainable recipes because nobody owns a freeze dry.
Freeze dried food is from a freeze dryer, dehydrated food is food that has been dehydrated…. using either a dehydrator with a fan, your oven, or even the sun. The beauty of dehydrating is that it can be done exclusively for FREE using what God has provided us. Air and sunshine!
In this blog post I’m going to talk about 3 ways to dehydrate your own mullein leave to save for later. I will mention that my favorite is filling up my dehydrator I own, because I have it, but every single method works perfectly fine. If all you have is the sun, you have a dehydrator. The Lord’s dehydrator specifically.
In the printable recipe card, I give instructions for dehydrating using a food dehydrator along with the oven and the sun, but see the other methods I give below for more in depth ideas for drying mullein leaves at home!
How to Use Mullein Leaf
My favorite ways to use mullein is as a mullein tincture, mullein steams, mullein infused chest rub, and mullein leaf tea.
This lovely herb is SO GOOD for anything lungs and respiratory. Coughs, congestion, colds, anything respiratory can be supported with good ole mullein.
To make a mullein leaves tea, simply pour almost boiling water over mullein leaves and allow them to sit for 24 hours. You can consume earlier, but I prefer to let it sit a good while before we drink it just to extract THE MOST. Add a bit of raw honey and some fresh squeezed lemon and you got yourself a beverage.
Mullein steams are incredibly easy to throw together. Bring a saucepan of 2 cups of water to a boil. Add about 1 Tbs of dried mullein leaves. Using a large towel, hold it over your head and the pot to trap the steam in and breathe it for about 15 minutes. This is so effective at breaking up congestion and helping with dry coughs. The steam penetrates deep and moisturizes your airways while bringing the lovely benefits of mullein with it.
Mullein leaves can also be dried for smoking however you’d like. I don’t do that very much because I’ve found that tea, tincture, and steams work wonderfully for my kids, so I stick to that for myself as well. They can easily be rolled and smoked or placed into a bowl and smoked that way. You can even light and just inhale near the smoke and get the benefits!
If you would like to learn to make a mullein tincture, using either fresh or dried mullein, read all about that here!
Where to Buy Dried Mullein Leaves
Dried mullein leave that I have foraged and hand gathered and dehydrated is available in my online farm store! Only available seasonally and as supplies last.
Check out all our herbal crafts while you’re there and see if you find something you like! I even craft extra of my mullein chest rub seasonally that is available in the spring.
Can You Dry Mullein Leaves?
Absolutely! And I’m fixin’ to show ya!
Can you Dry Mullein Leaves in a Dehydrator
A food dehydrator is also an investment, less so than a freeze dryer, but it still costs. Thankfully, I see them on Facebook Marketplace very frequently and also garage sales! You can pick up a used one pretty easily if you watch for them. I have a Magic Mill brand dehydrator that I’ve had since 2019 and it’s been wonderful! I put that thing to work year round making all kinds of goodies.
When choosing a dehydrator, the best kinds are those with a back fan. The trays dry evenly and there’s no rotating or watching required. Simply set the temperature and the time and let ‘er rip. The stacking style work, but they’re less-so set and forget and require you to rotate the trays during runs… which isn’t a big deal, especially if you can pick one up for cheap.
A dehydrator guarantees your food will dry with forced air and heat. You can control the temperature the food, herbs, and such are exposed to to preserve the maximum quality of your food, versus being at the mercy of the weather outside or your oven. They are pretty lightweight and easy to move around as well. If I’m doing something strong scented, like onions or garlic, I can easily carry it outside and put it on my porch to run that cycle. My house then doesn’t smell like 1000 armpits.
A freeze dryer could never!
Can You Dry Mullein Leaves in the Oven?
YES!
Some ovens today come with “dehydrate” settings which is awesome! For herbs, like mullein, I do prefer to dry them at quite a low temperature just to keep as much goodness of them intact as possible so it’s not denatured by heat. I run mine around 105F. So, be sure your oven goes pretty low for dehydrating as some do not.
If using an oven, I recommend allowing it to preheat to the lowest setting.
Layer your herbs on a cookie sheet fitted with a drying rack and layer the herbs on top. This allows the best air flow and most even dry. Place the sheet pan in the warmed oven, shut off the heat and leave the door propped open with a wooden spoon. Don’t close the door completely or you’re just trapping the moisture in there.
Leave the oven light on and cycle a low preheat a few times, keeping track of the temperature. It works perfectly fine!
The only downside to using your oven to dehydrate is it ties up your entire oven until the herbs dry. So make sure you don’t need it for dinner or to bake bread or something or that’ll really throw a wrench in your life!
Using the Sun
You can easily dry herbs using the sun and wind. I will tie my herbs in small bunches with twine and hand them upside down. You can do this in your barn or in a place that gets good air flow and they should be dry in a few days. They can even be hung inside in your kitchen! I’ve hung bunches from my ceiling fan before :D
Another way to use the sun is to buy the mesh herb drying hangers. They make them for laundry too, and you can layer the leaves in and it allows airflow while keeping the bugs off the leaves. They’re super neat and can be hung just about anywhere, even your clothes line.
Another great way is to simple lay the leaves out on a tray in a single layer to dry in the sun or even in indirect sunlight on your porch.
How to Harvest Mullein Leaf
First, be sure of you identification. Mullein leaf is fuzzy, has lighter colored leaf veining, and grows in a rosette style plant. Know your plants and make sure you’re picking the right thing. Commonly confused plants with mullein are lambs ear, mules ear, and comfrey, all of which do NOT grow in a pretty rosette!
Harvest mullein leaf specifically in early spring when the plants start popping up. You want to harvest the leaves before the second year plants shoot their flowering stalk up. This ensures the highest concentration of goodness in the leaves!
Choose unblemished leaves near the center of the rosette and leave the outside leaves be. You can gently tear them by hand or bring some small garden scissors to cut the leaves off where they meet the center of the plant.
Leaving outside leaves allows the plant to continue to thrive and the second years to produce a good strong stalk to then produce flowers which are also medicinal in their own way! I love using them for mullein flower ear oil. (More on that later).
Choose plants that align with what you’re comfortable using. I choose plants that are on the edge of fields that haven’t been sprayed and do not pick plants along roadsides. Pollution and all that. But, if you’re good with it, I am too!
You can also dig up very early spring plants, being sure to keep the tap root intact, and transplant to a full sun place in your herb garden and they will readily reseed themselves each year. This will give you an uncontaminated supply of mullein leaves. Unless you have a dog that likes to pee on them or starlings that will NOT go back to hell where they belong and poop everywhere.
How to Tell Leaves are Dry
To verify your mullein leaves are dry, crunch them in your hand. They should be brittle and break apart easily without much effort.
Any bend to the leaf means there is still moisture present. And moisture will cause mold in storage!
How to Store Dried Mullein Leaves
I like to break the leaves up and then add to a quart canning jar and pack tightly and then vacuum seal with a used canning lid. You can add desiccant packs in layers in the jar as you pack them if you’re not confident about moisture being completely removed!
They also store great in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers to really increase the shelf life!
Let’s learn how to dry mullein leaves!
Equipment You Might Want
Food Dehydrator & Trays
Jar + Lid
Jar Vacuum Sealer
Ingredients
Fresh Mullein Leaf
Step 1: Prep
Wash and drain fresh mullein leaves.
Layer onto trays of your dehydrator. If using your oven or hanging in bunches instead, see above blog post for those methods.
Step 2: Dehydrate
Food Dehydrator
Set your dehydrator to dry for 12 hours at 105F. If yours doesn’t allow temperature setting, set it to “low” or “herb”
Oven
Layer the herbs on a tray fitted with a cooling rack for good air circulation and faster dry times. Preheat the oven to the lowest setting it can go, shut off, and add the herbs and leave the oven door cracked open with a wooden spoon. Leave the oven light on and cycle a preheat every once and a while to help dry faster.
Sun Drying / Hanging
Tie mullein leaves in small bunches and allow to hang upside down in a well ventilated area until dry. You can also layer the leaves on a try and allow to dry in the sun or hang in a mesh clothes drying contraption. Whatever works!
Allow the mullein leaves to dry. When time is up, to test for doneness, crumble a leaf. They should easily crumble with minimal effort in your hands. Any leaves that still have bend to them and don’t crumble easily need to be dried a bit longer. Start at 4 hours and check from there.
Add the dry leaves to a large bowl and crumble into small pieces by hand.
Step 3: Storing
Short Term Storage (<12 months): pack leaves into a clean mason jar. You can alternate desiccant packs in layers if you desire. Wipe the jar rim with a dry cloth and then vacuum seal a canning lid on top. Store in a cool, dry, dark place for about 1 year.
Longer Term Storage(>12 months): pack leaves into a mylar bag and add a properly sized oxygen absorber for the size bag you are using and the type of food you are storing. Seal the mylar bag and store inside a mouse proof bin to protect the mylar.
Other choices would be to use a canning jar, add a properly sized oxygen absorber and then seal the lid on, either with a vacuum sealer or by tightening on with a ring. If you plan to use the dried mullein within 6 months or so, you can also just store in any air tight containers, even a ziploc bag is that’s all you have.
Shelf life for dried herbs is 2 years for maximum benefit (but they don’t really go bad… they just lose potency). I like to refresh my stash every year!
Notes
Make sure you are confident with herb identification and know what mullein is.
Equipment
- Food Dehydrator & Trays
- Jar Lid
Ingredients
- Fresh Mullein Leaf
Instructions
Step 1: Prep
- Wash and drain fresh mullein leaves.
- Layer onto trays of your dehydrator. If using your oven or hanging in bunches instead, see above blog post for those methods.
Step 2: Dehydrate
Food Dehydrator
- Set your dehydrator to dry for 12 hours at 105F. If yours doesn’t allow temperature setting, set it to “low” or “herb”
Oven
- Layer the herbs on a tray fitted with a cooling rack for good air circulation and faster dry times. Preheat the oven to the lowest setting it can go, shut off, and add the herbs and leave the oven door cracked open with a wooden spoon. Leave the oven light on and cycle a preheat every once and a while to help dry faster.
Sun Drying / Hanging
- Tie mullein leaves in small bunches and allow to hang upside down in a well ventilated area until dry. You can also layer the leaves on a try and allow to dry in the sun or hang in a mesh clothes drying contraption. Whatever works!
- Allow the mullein leaves to dry. When time is up, to test for doneness, crumble a leaf. They should easily crumble with minimal effort in your hands. Any leaves that still have bend to them and don’t crumble easily need to be dried a bit longer. Start at 4 hours and check from there.
- Add the dry leaves to a large bowl and crumble into small pieces by hand.
Step 3: Storing
- Short Term Storage (12 months): pack leaves into a mylar bag and add a properly sized oxygen absorber for the size bag you are using and the type of food you are storing. Seal the mylar bag and store inside a mouse proof bin to protect the mylar.
- Other choices would be to use a canning jar, add a properly sized oxygen absorber and then seal the lid on, either with a vacuum sealer or by tightening on with a ring. If you plan to use the dried mullein within 6 months or so, you can also just store in any air tight containers, even a ziploc bag is that’s all you have.
- Shelf life for dried herbs is 2 years for maximum benefit (but they don’t really go bad… they just lose potency). I like to refresh my stash every year!
