Cooking With Thyme: The Dos and Don'ts

Thyme is a hearty herb, as America’s Test Kitchen classes it,¹ which means it can go in early and handle long cooking in a way basil or parsley can’t. It goes into a bouquet garni, Jamaican jerk and za’atar. The trickiest part is the recipe that says “a sprig,” which can mean anywhere from 1/4 to 3/4 teaspoon of leaves. Below: when to add it, how to measure sprigs and convert fresh to dried, and how to keep it.

Where thyme belongs

French cooking. Fresh branches of thyme are especially typical of French cooking. The classic bouquet garni is parsley, thyme and a bay leaf, added to a soup, stew, sauce or poaching liquid for flavor and pulled out before serving. Dried thyme is part of herbes de Provence; France’s Label Rouge specification sets it at 19 percent of the blend.² See bouquet garni and herbes de Provence.

Meat, sausage and poultry. Thyme flavors butter, cheese, fish and meat. It often teams up with marjoram in sausages and goes well with bay. McCormick Culinary’s poultry seasoning lists thyme first, ahead of sage, marjoram and rosemary.³

Mediterranean vegetables. Fresh thyme suits Mediterranean vegetable dishes like ratatouille. Tomatoes, lamb and the other pairings often listed for thyme make sense too, though we found no reference that singles them out.

Jamaica and Louisiana. Jamaican jerk often contains thyme, and Creole cooking is known for using a lot of it. Saveur’s Jamaican jerk chicken marinade uses 1 tablespoon of dried thyme with ground allspice and Scotch bonnet chiles, and marinates the chicken at least 6 hours.⁴

Za’atar. Thyme is a vital aroma in the Jordanian blend. America’s Test Kitchen’s za’atar uses 2 tablespoons of dried thyme to 1 1/2 tablespoons of sumac.⁵ See za’atar.

When to add it

The sources disagree here:

Source	Advice
America’s Test Kitchen	Hearty herbs such as thyme go in early; their volatile flavor compounds are somewhat more heat-stable.¹ Dried thyme held up reasonably well in dishes cooked more than 20 minutes with a good amount of liquid.⁶
University of Delaware Extension	Extended cooking loses herb flavor; when a recipe calls for long simmering, add herbs during the last 45 minutes.⁷

A sensible middle ground: add sprigs or dried thyme early in a braise, stock or stew for a background note, and if the herb has faded by the end, add a little more fresh thyme in the last half hour. You’ll often read that long cooking makes thyme “mellower,” but we found no test behind that.

How much to use

The University of Delaware puts thyme in its medium-strength group and suggests 1 to 2 teaspoons for 6 servings. It doesn’t say fresh or dried. It also warns that herbs can taste objectionable when you use too much.⁷ Overdid it? See too much thyme.

Sprigs, leaves and stems

Recipes often call for sprigs. Food Network’s guide says sprigs usually run 2 to 4 inches, suggests picking 3- to 4-inch sprigs with a few side branches, and says a 4-inch sprig yields 1/4 to 3/4 teaspoon of leaves.⁸ That’s a wide range, so treat “a sprig” as a rough measure.

To strip the leaves, pinch the top of the sprig and run your fingers down the stem. The stem is edible but usually gets tossed after cooking. Or leave the sprigs whole and pull them out before serving, as with a bouquet garni.

Fresh vs. dried

Dried herbs are stronger than fresh by volume, and Katzer puts dried thyme at two to three times the intensity of fresh.⁹ Published conversions don’t agree:

Source	Dried : fresh
America’s Test Kitchen (tested)	1 part dried to 3 parts fresh⁶
University of Delaware Extension	3/4 to 1 teaspoon dried = 2 to 3 teaspoons fresh⁷
Food Network	1/2 teaspoon dried for 1 teaspoon fresh leaves⁸

Start with 1 teaspoon dried for 1 tablespoon fresh leaves, the ratio ATK tested, then taste. ATK’s tasters still liked fresh herbs better in most dishes, but dried thyme did well in long-cooked, liquid-rich ones.⁶ More in fresh vs. dried thyme.

Keeping fresh thyme

America’s Test Kitchen has given two different methods:

ATK article	Method
2016 buying and storage guide	Wrap in damp paper towels in a zipper-lock bag in the crisper¹⁰
2019 guide to fresh herbs	Keep hearty herbs dry: original packaging or an open zipper-lock bag, refrigerated¹

Neither gives a storage time, and we found no source for the “up to two weeks” you’ll often see, or for leaves turning black when stored damp. For longer keeping, South Dakota State University Extension says you can freeze thyme on its stems,¹¹ and Penn State Extension says most dried herbs keep well for one year.¹² Full detail on how to store thyme and can you freeze thyme.

Liz Bomze, “Our Guide to Fresh Herbs”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2019. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
Cahier des charges du Label Rouge « Herbes de Provence », INAO, 2014. extranet.inao.gouv.fr · Regulator ↩
“Poultry Seasoning, 12 oz”, McCormick Culinary. mccormick.com · Merchant ↩
“Jamaican Jerk Chicken”, Saveur, 2012. saveur.com · Publication ↩
Bryan Roof, “Za’atar”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2017. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩
“Science: Substituting Dried Herbs for Fresh”, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
Diane Oliver (rev.), “Using Herbs and Spices”, University of Delaware Cooperative Extension, 2025. udel.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³
Layla Khoury-Hanold, “What Is a Sprig of Thyme?”, Food Network, 2022. foodnetwork.com · Publication ↩ ↩²
Gernot Katzer, “Thyme”, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩
“How & Where to Buy, Use, and Store Fresh Herbs”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2016. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩
Lambert, Erickson and Kleine, “Preserving Herbs”, South Dakota State University Extension, 2022. extension.sdstate.edu · Reference work ↩
Stacy Reed, “Preserving Herbs by Drying”, Penn State Extension, 2024. extension.psu.edu · Reference work ↩

Also drawn on

Thymus vulgaris (PROSEA), S.H. Widodo, Plant Resources of South-East Asia, via Pl@ntUse. uses.plantnet-project.org
Bouquet garni, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com

Cooking With Thyme: When to Add It, How Much, and Where It Belongs