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Dried mint

Aromatic leaves

Dried mint

Crumbled dried spearmint with an earthy, deep flavour, used in cooked dishes and yogurt sauces.

Also called: dried spearmint, kuru nane, nana yabis

Around the world: kuru nane (tr) · na'na' yabis (ar) · na'na dagh (fa)

  • Herbal & green
  • No heat
Buying & storing30 recipes

Photo: Fumikas Sagisavas, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0-1.0)

Flavour and aroma

cool, earthy, sweet-herbal. Earthy, cool, slightly hay-like.

Heat
No heat
Forms
dried

How to use it

  • fry · Tadka (tempering) technique

    Stir into hot (not smoking) butter or oil off the heat for 5–10 seconds until fragrant and drizzle over soups, kashk or yogurt dishes; it burns in seconds.

  • use raw

    Crumble into yogurt dips (cacık), salads, köfte mixtures and stuffed vegetables.

  • Sizzled in butter over lentil soups and manti
  • Yogurt dips such as cacık
  • Iranian ash reshteh topping (nana dagh)
  • Salads and dressings such as fattoush
  • Mint tea

Identifying good quality

Crumbled, dull green leaves with a strong, sweet spearmint smell. Brown or dusty mint with little aroma is old.

  • Not to be confused with Mint: Fresh mint is brighter and cooler; dried mint is earthier and is used differently, not as a straight swap.

Origin and history

Origin: Spearmint (Mentha spicata) is native to Europe and western Asia.. Grown and used: Used dried throughout Turkey, Iran, the Levant, Iraq, Greece, the Balkans and Central Asia..

Dried mint is a staple seasoning in Turkish, Iranian and Levantine cooking, often more common in savoury dishes there than fresh mint. It is crumbled into yogurt dips, sprinkled over soups and fried in oil or butter as a garnish, for example the mint oil (nana dagh) on Iranian kashk-e bademjan and the mint butter on Turkish soups.

Commonly told; not firmly documented

In masalas, pastes and sauces

Recipes with dried mint

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