Winter Savory: The Perennial Bean and Game Herb, Its Flavor and Chemistry

The German word for savory, Bohnenkraut, is built on the word for beans, and beans are a classic use for winter savory. It’s the leaf of Satureja montana, a low, woody perennial in the mint family. It does the same jobs in the kitchen as summer savory but it’s harsher and more bitter, which makes it a natural for beans, organ meats and game. Its smell is resinous and peppery, closer to thyme than to mint.

At a glance

What winter savory is

Winter savory is a subshrub of the temperate zone, an evergreen shrub that flowers from June to August with lavender or purple blooms. It likes full sun and well-drained soil, handles dry conditions, and has fragrant leaves that deer leave alone. It also makes a good evergreen edging in an herb garden. Summer savory (Satureja hortensis), by contrast, is an annual.

Native range

Kew gives the native range as south-central and southern Europe to Lebanon, listing Albania, Austria, France, Greece, Italy, Lebanon-Syria, the northwestern Balkans, Spain and Türkiye. It’s recorded as introduced in Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Portugal, the Azores and Texas.³ Monticello calls it native to the Mediterranean.⁴ Kew doesn’t list any North African country in its native range, so the botanical authority doesn’t back the common claim that winter savory is native to North Africa.

Flavor and aroma

Winter savory is harsher and more bitter than summer savory. It’s resinous and peppery, closer to thyme than to mint, with a bitter edge that builds if you add too much.

The compounds

We opened only a few analyses of winter savory oil, and the one below is a single sample, not a typical figure.

The Croatian authors grouped winter savory with S. cuneifolia as carvacrol-rich. They found that summer savory’s oil looked similar in makeup even though the DNA put it in a separate group.¹ For summer savory, a 2018 review reports carvacrol anywhere from 11% to 67% of the oil across studies. Savory oils vary a lot with growing conditions, so don’t compare one sample to another as if the numbers were fixed.⁵ See summer savory for that range.

Origin and history

Monticello’s notes say winter savory was grown in New England gardens during the 17th century. In an 1820 letter, George Divers, a neighbor of Thomas Jefferson, offered to supply Jefferson with marjoram, winter savory and thyme.⁴ So Jefferson’s circle had access to the herb. Nothing in the sources we opened says Jefferson himself planted it.

The English name traces to Latin satureia, which the Online Etymology Dictionary calls a foreign word of unknown origin.⁶ That entry doesn’t support the often-repeated story that Pliny coined the genus name from “satyr.” A related claim, that Satureja shares a root with the Middle Eastern word za’atar, couldn’t be traced to any source.

Other stories about savory’s past go around too: that Romans used it in fish dishes and brought it to England, that it was Europe’s strongest seasoning before black pepper, and that medieval European cooks used it to stuff meats. We couldn’t trace any of them to a source we could open, so we’re leaving them out.

How winter savory is used

Monticello suggests the leaves for hearty foods like bean dishes, organ meats and wild game.⁴ You can cook with winter savory much as you would summer savory, which means poultry and stuffings. The German name for savory, Bohnenkraut, is built on the word for beans, and Duden defines it as an herb used especially to season bean dishes.⁷

In the kitchen:

• It’s stronger and more bitter than summer savory, so start with less than a summer savory recipe calls for.
• It gets along with other strong mint-family herbs like rosemary, sage and thyme.
• A sprig can go into a bouquet garni for a bean soup, though the classic bundle is parsley, thyme and a bay leaf.

For more ideas, see winter savory uses.

Buying, nutrition and storage

We found no international or national quality standard for savory. USDA FoodData Central lists ground savory at 37.9 mg iron, 2,130 mg calcium and 377 mg magnesium per 100 g, but doesn’t say whether that’s summer or winter savory.⁸ Either way, a dish uses a tiny fraction of that. We found no published shelf-life figure for dried savory. If a rubbed pinch smells faint, it’s faded.

Safety and health claims

The FDA lists winter savory (as Satureia montana) among spices generally recognized as safe.² The NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health has no fact sheet on savory.⁹ Britannica notes only that savory’s essential oils have potential antioxidant, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties and that the herb has traditional medicinal uses.¹⁰ We make no claim that winter savory treats or prevents coughs, gas, food poisoning or anything else.

Substitutes and comparisons

Summer savory is the obvious stand-in, milder and less bitter. Thyme is the usual second choice. See winter savory substitutes, summer savory substitutes and summer savory vs. winter savory.

Related pages

• Summer savory
• Thyme
• Mint
• Herbes de Provence