Fresh Thyme vs. Dried Thyme: How Much to Use

Out of fresh thyme? Thyme dries well, and in America’s Test Kitchen’s tests, dried thyme did reasonably well in long-cooked dishes with plenty of liquid.¹ Use 1 teaspoon of dried leaves for each tablespoon of fresh, a figure where ATK’s tasting and USDA’s weights line up. Both are the same herb, usually common thyme, Thymus vulgaris, a mint-family plant native to southwestern Europe and southeastern Italy. What matters is how much to use, when to add it, and what drying takes out.

Side by side

	Fresh thyme	Dried thyme
Plant	Thymus vulgaris (common thyme), family Lamiaceae	Same plant, dried leaves, sold whole-leaf or ground
Key compounds	PROSEA names thymol and carvacrol as the oil’s characteristic constituents;² one 2023 analysis of common thyme oil found 42.44% thymol³	Same compounds; gentle drying lost little volatile oil in one study, drying at 60°C significantly more⁴
Water	65.1 g per 100 g⁵	7.79 g per 100 g⁶
Weight of 1 teaspoon	0.8 g⁵	1.0 g leaves; 1.4 g ground⁶
Vitamin C	160 mg per 100 g⁵	50 mg per 100 g⁶
Flavor	Brighter and greener, with a faint lemony lift	Deeper and more savory, less bright
In cooking	A hearty herb: add early⁷	Best in dishes cooked more than 20 minutes with a good amount of liquid¹
Storage	Refrigerate in its packaging or an open zipper-lock bag⁷	Airtight and away from air, light, moisture and heat; one extension service gives 1 year for ground spices and herbs⁸

The USDA figures come from separate samples, not one batch measured before and after drying.

What drying does to thyme

America’s Test Kitchen puts thyme on its list of herbs worth keeping dried, with oregano, sage, rosemary and marjoram.⁹ Its explanation: the volatile flavor compounds in hearty herbs like thyme are somewhat more heat-stable than those in delicate herbs.⁷ Even so, its tasters preferred fresh herbs in all but one use.¹

A 1997 study of thyme and sage compared fresh herbs with freeze-dried and oven-dried samples. The amount of extracted volatiles dropped significantly only when the herbs were dried at 60°C, mostly through the loss of non-oxygenated monoterpenes. Thyme’s headspace aroma changed in more complicated ways, with aroma compounds actually highest in the herb dried at 60°C.⁴ So drying changes thyme’s aroma, but it doesn’t simply strip it.

Vitamins. USDA lists 160 mg of vitamin C per 100 g of fresh thyme and 50 mg per 100 g of dried.⁵⁶ Correcting for water (by our math), the dried sample has roughly an eighth of the fresh sample’s vitamin C per gram of solids. The samples are separate, so take that as a hint, not a measured loss. At the teaspoon or so you’d use in a dish, neither form is a meaningful vitamin source.

How much dried thyme replaces fresh?

The sources agree more closely on thyme leaves than on ground thyme.

Source	Fresh	Dried leaves	Ground
America’s Test Kitchen (tested)	3 parts	1 part¹	not given
The Spice House (thyme)	3 parts	1 part¹⁰	not given
LSU AgCenter (all herbs)	1 tablespoon, finely cut	1 teaspoon crumbled¹¹	not given
University of Delaware (all herbs)	2 to 3 teaspoons	3/4 to 1 teaspoon crumbled¹²	not given
NDSU Extension (all herbs)	1 tablespoon	1 teaspoon	1/2 teaspoon¹³
Penn State Extension (all herbs)	1 tablespoon	1 teaspoon	1/4 teaspoon¹⁴

Ratio (Computed and Attributed), dried leaves: 1 teaspoon of dried thyme leaves per tablespoon of fresh leaves. America’s Test Kitchen found that 1 part dried to 3 parts fresh came closest to equal flavor,¹ and every other source above lands at or near the same figure. USDA’s data agree. A tablespoon of fresh thyme weighs about 2.4 g, about 0.84 g of it solids; a teaspoon of dried leaves holds about 0.92 g of solids (our math from USDA weights and water content).⁵⁶ Equal solids aren’t equal flavor, since drying moves aroma compounds around, but here the math and the tasting line up.

Ratio (Disputed), ground thyme: NDSU gives 1/2 teaspoon of ground herb per tablespoon of fresh,¹³ Penn State 1/4 teaspoon.¹⁴ By USDA weights, a teaspoon of ground thyme holds about 1.29 g of solids, so matching a tablespoon of fresh by solids would take about 2/3 teaspoon (by our math),⁵⁶ more than either source suggests. Nobody tasted any of these. Our starting point: 1/4 teaspoon of ground thyme per tablespoon of fresh, then taste and add.

Sprigs. We found no published conversion from thyme sprigs to dried thyme. Sprigs vary too much in size for a reliable number, so strip the leaves and measure them.

Old jars. The University of Delaware says to crush dried herbs first to release some of their oils. If your dried thyme smells faint, you’ll need more than the table suggests.

When to add it

America’s Test Kitchen says to add hearty herbs like thyme early in cooking.⁷ The University of Delaware notes that long cooking costs herbs flavor and suggests adding them in the last 45 minutes of a long simmer.¹² Going by that, thyme for a braise that cooks for hours can go in partway through, not at the start. For most soups, stews and sauces, adding it with the liquid works. Thyme is also one of the three herbs in the classic bouquet garni, with parsley and a bay leaf, tied together and added to soups, stews, sauces and poaching liquids.

Which to use

Fresh for finishing, for roasting with meat or vegetables where you can see the sprigs, and for quick-cooked dishes.
Dried for long-cooked soups, stews, beans and braises with liquid, which is where it did well in testing, and in dry rubs and spice blends.
Both forms are standard: thyme is used fresh and dried as a condiment and culinary herb.

What isn’t known

No published conversion for sprigs of thyme, fresh or dried.
The fresh-to-ground figure is disputed and untested.
How long fresh thyme keeps in the fridge: the “about a week” you often see has no traceable source.
Beyond America’s Test Kitchen’s general herb tests, no sensory study compares fresh and dried thyme in the same dish.

Thyme, thyme substitutes and too much thyme
Dried herbs vs. fresh: the general rules for every herb
How to store thyme, can you freeze thyme?, cooking with thyme and thyme uses
Fresh sage vs. dried, fresh oregano vs. dried and dried rosemary vs. fresh
Lemon thyme and thyme vs. lemon thyme

“Science: Substituting Dried Herbs for Fresh”, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
S.H. Widodo, Thymus vulgaris, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩
Dong et al., “Chemical Compositions of Essential Oil Extracted from Eight Thyme Species”, Plants, 2023. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩
Venskutonis, “Effect of drying on the volatile constituents of thyme and sage”, Food Chemistry, 1997 (abstract). agris.fao.org · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩²
Thyme, fresh, FDC ID 173470, USDA FoodData Central. fdc.nal.usda.gov · Regulator ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Spices, thyme, dried, FDC ID 170938, USDA FoodData Central. fdc.nal.usda.gov · Regulator ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Liz Bomze, “Our Guide to Fresh Herbs”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2019. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Anna Martin, “Add a Little Spice to Your Life! Part II”, University of California Cooperative Extension, 2002. ucanr.edu · Reference work ↩
Danielle Lapierre, “When You Should Actually Use Dried Herbs (and Which Ones to Avoid)”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2022. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩
“The 11 Best Thyme Substitutes”, The Spice House, 2018. thespicehouse.com · Merchant ↩
“Flavorful Herbs”, LSU AgCenter. lsuagcenter.com · Reference work ↩
“Using Herbs and Spices”, University of Delaware Cooperative Extension, 2025. udel.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Julie Garden-Robinson, Ingredient Substitutions (FN198), NDSU Extension, 2018. ksre.ksu.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Stacy Reed, “Preserving Herbs by Drying”, Penn State Extension, 2024. extension.psu.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩²

Also drawn on

Thymus vulgaris L., Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. powo.science.kew.org
Bouquet garni, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com

Fresh Thyme vs. Dried Thyme: Flavor, Conversions and When to Use Each