Leafy greens
Dried Garlic Chives (Nira)Drying Time, Storage and Using Them in Soups
Garlic chives, called nira in Japan and buchu in Korea, are flat-leaved chives with a strong garlicky aroma. Outside Japan, look for them at Asian grocery stores, sometimes labeled “Chinese chives”.
Drying mellows the aroma, so even people who don’t like the strong smell of fresh chives find them easier to use. Garlic chives spoil fast and turn mushy even in the fridge. Dry what you can’t use, and you can add a little at a time to soups and stir-fries.
Garlic chives are not suited to semi-drying. If some water is left in them, they spoil quickly, so dry them until completely crisp.
| Drying time | Storage | |
|---|---|---|
| Dry | 3–5 days | 3 weeks at room temperature |
Drying times assume drying during the day in sunny weather and bringing them in at night.
How to dry garlic chives
- Wash and pat dry: Wash the dirt off the base well and pat thoroughly dry with paper towels.
- Cut: Cut into lengths of about 5 cm (2 in).
- Lay out and dry: Spread on a basket without overlapping, somewhere sunny and breezy. Toss them about once a day and bring them in by evening.
Where and when to dry is covered in How to Dry Vegetables, and tools in Tools for Drying Vegetables.
When they’re done
Dry (3–5 days)
They’re done when they’ve shrunk thin, turned a dull green, and snap when pinched. The white part near the base dries last, so snap one there to check.
Day by day
Before drying
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Storage
- Room temperature: Put completely crisp chives in a bag or airtight container with a desiccant, and keep somewhere cool and out of direct sun for about 3 weeks.
- Frozen: To keep them longer, freeze them for 2–3 months.
If they go limp from moisture during storage, dry them again. Fuzzy white or green growth, black spots or a bad smell are signs of mold or spoilage; throw them away. More in How to Store Dried Vegetables.
How to use them
- In soups: Add a pinch to miso soup, Chinese soups, ramen or rice porridge at the end. They soften right away.
- In stir-fries: Add them dry to liver and chive stir-fry, chive omelet or yakisoba.
- In dumplings and pancakes: Soak in water for about 5 minutes, squeeze, chop and mix into gyoza filling or Korean pancake batter.
