Now that summer is here you can roll out the barbecue and start picking from the garden. With good weather also comes good company. When you’re entertaining, a valuable and versatile culinary tool can be good olive oil. I don’t necessarily mean expensive, just good tasting. A great way to help with that can be infusing your oil with herbs. One herb in particular usually gets forgotten in this process, cannabis. Infusing your own olive oil is fun, delicious, and can be done with a variety of herbs and different blends. The amount of oil and herbs can both be adjusted to taste.
What you’ll need:
Olive oil
Cannabis
- Cheesecloth bag
- Quart mason jar
- Sheet pan (to decarboxylate your cannabis)
- Oven
- Slow cooker
- Additional fresh, or dried, herbs (optional)
To decarboxylate your cannabis, heat your oven to 240 degrees. The temperature is low to make sure you don’t burn off any precious terpenes. After about 10-15 minutes you’ll know it’s ready from the aroma.
Place your cannabis in the cheesecloth bag. You can also throw in any of your other favorite herbs like rosemary. If you choose to do this, please make sure you are using organic herbs. Although you may be careful about the cannabis you buy, it’s easy to overlook the fact that those pesticides are still on your food.
Put your bag in the mason jar and fill it ¾ of the way with your olive oil of choice. If you want your oil to be stronger, or you don’t have enough herb, you can use less oil.
Place a hand towel at the bottom of your slow cooker to prevent your jar from tipping over or chipping. Fill with water until the jar is about ⅔ covered. You don’t want it fully submerged, and you don’t want the jar to float.
Turn the slow cooker on low. Slow cookers vary by brand, but most settings don’t exceed 209 degrees. Once the water has warmed up place the jar(s) in the water. Let it sit for at least 4 hours. Ideally, you want to let it cook for about 6-8 hours.
Carefully remove the jar from the water to cool and dry. Once you are comfortable handling it, you can remove and strain the bag. Just give it a good squeeze. You can leave the oil in the mason jars or, with the aid of a funnel, pour them into more decorative bottles.
We’re going to be using infused olive oil in our CannaChef recipes for the rest of the summer, so make sure you have some on hand!
Enjoy!
