Mint Uses: Lamb Sauce, Tabbouleh, Tea, Cocktails, Desserts and Preserving

In cookery, “mint” usually means peppermint or spearmint, according to Britannica,¹ and the two go to different places. Spearmint, milder and without menthol,² covers most savory food and drinks; Britannica lists beverages, salads, soups, cheeses, meats, fish, sauces, fruits and vegetables among its uses.³ Peppermint, says Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages, is used almost entirely for sweets and sweet liqueurs.⁴ This page maps where mint goes. For which mint to buy, when to add it and how to muddle it, see cooking with mint.

At a glance

With meat: lamb sauce, jelly and Greek seasoning

Mint sauce. North Dakota State University (NDSU) Extension calls mint a frequent accompaniment to pork or lamb, and notes that in England roasted lamb is often served with mint sauce.⁶ Saveur’s recipe, introduced with Megan Wetherall’s description of the sauce as a simple composition of fresh mint, sugar and vinegar, uses 2 1/4 cups of finely chopped leaves; the mint, sugar and salt are steeped in boiling water, then vinegar goes in and the sauce rests for an hour.⁵ Katzer says spearmint is the mint to use for it.⁴ A widely repeated story says the sauce began as a way to mask stale or fatty meat. We found no source for that history.

Mint jelly. NDSU Extension publishes a tested mint jelly made from mint juice (1 1/2 cups firmly packed fresh mint steeped in 2 1/4 cups water), processed in a boiling water-bath canner for 5 minutes at elevations up to 1,000 feet, and longer higher up; it makes about 3 or 4 half-pint jars.⁶ NDSU suggests serving it with roasted lamb or chicken, or as a topping for chocolate or vanilla ice cream.⁶ Mint jelly is often called the American version of British mint sauce; we found no source for that framing.

Greek seasoning. McCormick describes its Culinary Greek seasoning as a blend of oregano, garlic and onion with a touch of mint.¹² See Greek seasoning and gyro spices.

In salads and soups

• Tabbouleh. NDSU Extension cites tabbouleh as an example of mint in Middle Eastern dishes.⁶ Saveur’s version is an herb salad, with 1 1/2 cups of packed mint to 3 cups of parsley, plus tomatoes, and notes that it leaves out bulgur, a common ingredient.⁷ The mint is raw, and plentiful.
• Green and fruit salads. Britannica lists salads and fruits among spearmint’s uses.³ Particular pairings, such as watermelon or strawberries, are common practice rather than sourced.
• Noodle soup. In Vietnam, Katzer writes, a mild spearmint- or caraway-scented mint is preferred with noodle soup.⁴
• Peas and other vegetables. Minted peas are often described as a traditional English dish. We found no source for that in our research; Britannica’s list of spearmint uses includes vegetables in general.³

Drinks

Tea. NDSU Extension’s method is simple: add several leaves to boiling water and steep for up to five minutes.⁶ Saveur notes that mint tea is served throughout North Africa; its Moroccan version steeps 2 tablespoons of Chinese gunpowder or green tea, a bunch of mint (about 25 sprigs) and sugar in 4 cups of boiling water for 10 minutes.⁸ On health, the NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) says very little research has been done on peppermint leaf, and that peppermint tea appears to be safe.¹³ The digestive evidence it describes is for peppermint oil capsules, not tea; this page makes no claim that mint tea treats anything. See Moroccan mint.

Lemonade. NDSU’s mint lemonade mashes 1/3 cup of mint leaves with 1/4 cup of sugar in the pitcher, and makes nine 1-cup servings.⁶ NDSU notes that mint goes into both cold and hot drinks.⁶

Mint julep. Britannica describes it as an iced cocktail of bourbon, mint and sugar.⁹

Mojito. Herbalist Susan Belsinger, quoted in Garden & Gun, says the brightness of menthol is what stands up to the rum and lime.¹⁰ How to get the mint into the drink is disputed:

The two agree more than it seems: the Ruhlman method strains the crushed leaves out before the drink is built. Neither is a controlled test.

Desserts

Katzer says peppermint goes extremely well with chocolate.⁴ In practice much dessert mint comes from extract rather than leaves. McCormick’s Pure Peppermint Extract lists alcohol, water and oil of peppermint, and McCormick suggests a few drops in hot cocoa, frosting or brownie batter.¹¹ Britannica notes that spearmint leaves flavor many foods, particularly sweets,³ so spearmint has a dessert role too. For mint ice cream, chocolate mint and other sweet uses, see chocolate mint and spearmint vs. peppermint.

Preserving mint

• Mint vinegar. Colorado State University Extension lists mint among the fresh herbs for flavored vinegar and allows at least 10 days for the flavor to develop; it keeps up to six to eight months in the refrigerator.¹⁶
• Mint in oil. Oregon State University Extension warns that herbs are low-acid foods that can carry Clostridium botulinum, so homemade herb oil must be refrigerated and used within 4 days, or frozen.¹⁷
• Freezing and keeping fresh. NDSU says fresh mint keeps in a glass of water or wrapped in plastic in the refrigerator for up to a week, and can be frozen in airtight freezer bags.⁶ See how to store mint, can you freeze mint? and how to dry mint.

Mint pesto

Mint can be pounded with garlic, oil and nuts into a pesto-style sauce, alone or with basil. That is kitchen practice; we did not find a named recipe to cite, and it is a different sauce from basil pesto alla genovese.

Not yet sourced

• Minted peas as a traditional English dish.
• Mint in tzatziki: we found no recipe meeting our standard that includes it.
• The history of mint sauce as a mask for stale meat.
• A taste test of muddled versus shaken mint.

Related

• Mint, cooking with mint, types of mint and too much mint
• Spearmint, peppermint, Moroccan mint, chocolate mint, apple mint and orange mint
• Mint substitutes, basil vs. mint, oregano vs. mint and lemon balm vs. mint