Homemade Celery Salt-Almost Free

Whenever I came across a recipe that called for celery salt, I never seemed to have any on hand.  I would look at the price of celery salt in the grocery and wince.  Since hubby does not like celery leaves in soups and such, I would throw the leaves away and feel guilty for wasting food.

Then one day I decided to try to dry my celery leaves and a way to make Homemade Celery Salt was born.  Now I can have celery salt whenever I need it, save money and not waste food.  It turned out to be so easy that I almost did not believe it.

See all the beautiful leaves on the celery stalk above.  Just snip them off as you use celery and place in a shallow pie pan.  If you have a pan that has holes in it, that is best.  Discard any leaves that are wilted or discolored.  Just place the pie pan in an out-of-the-way place in you kitchen and let the leaves dry.  This will take several days.

When the leaves are dry, store them in a zip-top bag.  Continue to add leaves to the pie pan as you use the celery.  When you get to the heart of the celery you will have quite a few leaves to put in your pie pan and may need to use two pans.  You always want the leaves to be in a single layer.  Continue to add the dried leaves to the zip top bag.

When there is about one-half cup of dried leaves, that will be enough to process in a spice grinder or a mini food processor.  That amount will yield about 1 1/2 T. of ground celery powder.  To make celery salt, mix the powder with an equal amount of salt.  Rather than make a large batch of celery salt, I just store the celery powder in an air-tight container and mix it with the salt as needed.  This way I can use the celery powder by itself if I want to.  Try this and enjoy “almost free”  homemade celery salt.

Linking to:  Weekend Potluck
Strut Your Stuff