Cooking With Herbes de Provence: Dos, Don'ts and Amounts

Open two jars of herbes de Provence and you may find two different blends, one floral with lavender and one without. The recipe changes from jar to jar, and the French Label Rouge version leaves lavender out entirely. Whatever’s in yours, add it early, to something that cooks a while in liquid or fat, and go easy, because it can take over. It’s a blend of dried, mostly woody Mediterranean herbs, and it behaves like them.

At a glance

Question	Short answer
What is in it?	Thyme, rosemary, savory and oregano in the French Label Rouge version;¹ marjoram, fennel seed, basil and others in many commercial blends²
Lavender?	Not in the Label Rouge recipe;¹ added to some commercial blends²
When to add it	Early, in dishes that cook with liquid; ATK found hardy dried herbs hold up in long, moist cooking³
How much?	The Spice House starts at 1 to 2 teaspoons per pound of meat;⁴ recipe amounts below
Best dishes	Grilled fish, marinated meat and roasted vegetables (The Takeout);² braised chicken, ratatouille, roast chicken, lamb and beef stew in the recipes below⁵⁶
Fresh herbs instead?	Use about three times as much fresh as dried (Spice House)⁴

Read the label first

There’s no single recipe. One French version carries the Label Rouge quality mark, and its specification fixes thyme, rosemary, savory and oregano (with a little basil in the original text) and leaves out lavender.¹ Ducros’s current Label Rouge blend is rosemary, savory and oregano at 27% each and thyme at 19%.⁷ Outside that label, Leah Kaplan of The Takeout lists rosemary, fennel seed, thyme, marjoram and savory as the most common herbs, plus basil, mint, oregano and tarragon, and sometimes bay leaves, chervil or culinary lavender.²

You’ll taste the difference in the pan. A thyme-and-savory blend tastes peppery and resinous, one with fennel seed adds an anise note, and one with lavender is floral. The full certified recipe is on the herbes de Provence profile.

When to add it

Early. America’s Test Kitchen found that dried rosemary, sage and thyme held up reasonably well in dishes with fairly long cooking times (more than 20 minutes) and a good amount of liquid.³ Those are the herbs that make up most of a typical blend. The recipes below follow the same pattern:

In ATK’s Classic Chicken Provençal, the optional herbes de Provence gets stirred in with the broth, tomatoes and fresh herbs before the pot goes into the oven to braise.⁵
In Beth Schreibman-Gehring’s ratatouille for the Herb Society of America, three tablespoons of the blend go in after the vegetables are cooked, and the pot then simmers gently for about two and a half hours. Fresh basil goes in at the end.⁶

That second recipe splits the work nicely: the dried blend for the long cook, a delicate fresh herb to finish.

For dishes with little or no cooking, like a vinaigrette, crush the blend between your fingers and give it time to soften in the oil or acid before serving.

How much to use

Here’s what named sources use, and it varies with the dish:

Source	Dish	Amount
The Spice House⁴	Meat, general starting point	1 to 2 teaspoons per pound
America’s Test Kitchen⁵	Chicken Provençal: 8 bone-in thighs (about 3 pounds), braised with tomatoes, wine and fresh thyme and oregano; serves 4	1 teaspoon, optional
Herb Society of America blog⁶	Ratatouille: about 8 cups of vegetables, simmered about 2 1/2 hours	3 tablespoons

The ATK figure is low because that recipe also uses fresh thyme, oregano and a bay leaf, so the blend is just a supporting note.⁵ If your blend has lavender, start at the low end and taste before adding more. The Spice House suggests leaving lavender out of a homemade blend entirely, or using a very small pinch of lemon zest for brightness instead.⁴

What to make with it

Grilling and roasting. The Takeout recommends it for grilling fish, marinating meat and roasting vegetables.² The Herb Society writer uses it on grilled fish and lamb.⁶
Roast chicken. The same writer mixes it into butter with a bit of garlic and tucks it under the skin of a roasting chicken.⁶
Braises and stews. ATK’s Chicken Provençal and the Herb Society writer’s beef stew both use it.⁵⁶
Ratatouille. See the timing and amount above.
Other ideas. Compound butter for steak or vegetables, a pinch in tomato sauce, meatloaf or white beans, and olive oil for dipping bread.

Olive oil and butter

Both recipes above cook the blend in fat. The ratatouille starts with about 4 tablespoons of olive oil and finishes with butter,⁶ and the chicken uses a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil.⁵ For a rub, stir the blend into olive oil before you spread it on meat or vegetables.

Fresh herbs instead of dried

You can make the blend from fresh herbs.

Ratio (Computed): The Spice House says to use roughly three times as much fresh as dried.⁴ ATK’s tests with individual herbs found that 1 part dried to 3 parts fresh came closest to equal flavor, and that tasters preferred fresh herbs in all but one dish.³ Fresh herbs suit shorter cooking and finishing; dried suits long braises.

The lavender question

You’ll often read that lavender isn’t a traditional Provençal cooking herb. What we can show is narrower: the Label Rouge recipe has none,¹ and Kaplan writes that it was added to the blend to appease tourists.² That’s her account, not documented history. The blend works fine without lavender, and if your jar has it, the floral note is easy to overdo. See cooking with lavender for handling lavender on its own.

Swapping it

The closest everyday stand-in is Italian seasoning, which USDA’s purchasing specification describes as thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano and basil.⁸

Ratio (Attributed): The Takeout says you can usually swap the two one for one.² More options are in herbes de Provence substitutes and herbes de Provence vs. Italian seasoning.

Storing it

The Takeout says the blend can last up to a year in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.² Ducros gives its Label Rouge blend a best-before period of 24 months.⁷ Neither is a measured shelf life. Rub a pinch between your fingers: if it smells faint or looks gray-brown instead of green, it’s faded.

Not yet measured

No source gives a general amount of the blend per serving; the figures above are individual recipes.
No source compares how blends with and without lavender behave in long cooking.
How quickly the blend loses aroma once opened.

Cahier des charges du Label Rouge LA 02/03 « Herbes de Provence », modification request, INAO, 2014. extranet.inao.gouv.fr · Regulator ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Leah Kaplan, What Is Herbs De Provence, Really?, The Takeout, 2025. thetakeout.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Science: Substituting Dried Herbs for Fresh, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
Herbes De Provence Substitute, The Spice House, 2017. thespicehouse.com · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Classic Chicken Provençal, Cook’s Illustrated, America’s Test Kitchen, 2007. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Beth Schreibman-Gehring, Herbes de Provence Essential to Ratatouille, The Herb Society of America Blog, 2019. blog.herbsociety.org · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
Provencal herbs red label 78g, product specification, McCormick for Chefs (Ducros), 2025. mccormickforchefs.com · Merchant ↩ ↩²
Commercial Item Description A-A-20001C, Spices and Spice Blends, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, 2023. ams.usda.gov · Regulator ↩

Cooking With Herbes de Provence: How Much, When to Add It and What to Make