Can I use fresh basil stems?

[runwestierun]

I buy fresh basil in pound bags and have always just used the leaves. If I've bought more than I can use that day I will grind the leaves in the food processor with olive oil and freeze them.

Here in the Pacific Northwest fresh basil has nearly doubled in price in one week, having remained steady for years. What a surprize! So today I took a pound bag apart and weighed everything--I am throwing away 7 ounces of stems from each pound. I am wondering if anyone uses the stems. Can I grind them with the leaves or are they too bland and fibrous? Anyone have any experience with fresh basil stems?

[minas6907]

I'd always just make a basil oil

[Broken English]

I was taught that they (along with the flowers) are bitter, and will ruin something like pesto, though I don't know if the reason the pesto is ruined is because of the texture, not the flavour (or if it's just an old wive's tale).

I've never really given it any thought other than that. Have a chew on one, if they're not bitter, I'd make basil oil with them (seeing as the solids are strained off, the texture is not an issue).

[gfweb]

I have taken dried basil stems and used them to smoke turkey. Maybe I detected a little note of the herb in the meat.

[lesliec]

I know of no reason at all not to use the stems, which seem to have plenty of juice and flavour in them.

I make a kind of rustic pesto (basil, garlic, oil, S&P) which I use to coat chicken before roasting quite hot, and I always use all the basil in my mortar and pestle.

And for the last little while I've been dropping some fresh basil - stem and all - into my juicer along with orange and apple in the morning (we keep a growing plant on the bench where the juicer lives). Rather nice and different. Coriander is good for this too.