How to Infuse Cream – Herbs, Spices & Aromatics (Chef’s Technique)
Herb infused cream is the technique I reach for more than any other on this site, and it’s barely a technique at all. Garlic, rosemary and sage go in the pot with the cream. They steep, you strain, and that’s it. Stir a little into a soup or a pan sauce and somebody will ask what you did differently, though the smell usually gets there before the question does… I never tell them. Fifteen more aromatics are sitting below, so pick your own combination!
Do not forget to check out my Chefs Tips and Wine Pairings sections below!
So, what’s missing from your usual pasta or soup? I’ll tell you—it’s this cream! Garlic, rosemary, sage… sounds basic, but the way these flavors come together is anything but. You already make a decent pan sauce, this infused cream recipe is the one step that raises the bar, way up! Garlic, rosemary and sage (or lots of other choices) go into warm heavy cream. They sit for twenty minutes, you pour the lot through a strainer, and you’re done. I made it the first time for a potato gratin and then spent the rest of that week putting it into things that didn’t need it at all.
Stir it into mashed potatoes instead of the milk. Make it the base of an infused cream sauce for pasta, or pour a little into a soup right at the end. Baked vegetables too, drizzled over while they’re still hot. (The mashed potato version is the one my kids ask for now : ) So flavorful, and none of it costs you more than a minute of extra work.
Those three are where I always start, and it’s what the recipe below uses. Swap in thyme, or tarragon, or, honestly, a strip of lemon peel. There’s no wrong answer and I’ve never once measured the herbs.
Use your new trick to make some of my cream based recipes even better: Creamy Tuscan Rigatoni, Chicken Tortellini Alfredo, Vodka Sauce
And this one is probably the most impactful to infuse!! Mushroom & Bacon Gratinee
If you want to skip ahead, you can just Jump to Recipe
Why This Infused Cream Works
- Twenty Minutes, Start to Finish: Five of those minutes are actual work. You warm heavy cream with crushed garlic, rosemary and sage (or whatever! See below) until it’s warm, then leave it alone. I usually wander off and forget about it (not really, its on a timer) , which is fine, it just keeps steeping while I’m gone.
- It Goes Into Almost Anything: Pasta sauce, soup, a gratin, scrambled eggs on a Sunday.
- Infused cream for mashed potatoes is the one I come back to, straight in where the milk would have gone. Anywhere a recipe calls for plain cream, use this instead, same quantity and same timing. If you want the background on where cream sauces came from, I wrote about the five French mother sauces separately.
- Pick Your Own Aromatics: Thyme in place of the rosemary. Tarragon if there’s chicken in the dish. A strip of lemon peel, a few black peppercorns, a dried chile dropped in for the last five minutes. Fifteen more are listed further down and I’ve worked my way through maybe nine of them.
- Low Heat Does the Work: Warm, never boiling. Cream splits at a boil and there is no fixing it once it goes, which I found out the hard way over a sink. Gentle heat pulls the oils out of the garlic and the herbs slowly and leaves the texture alone.
- Make It Ahead: Put it in a sealed jar and it’s good for as much as 5 days in the fridge. I make a batch on Sunday when I can already tell the week is going to be a mess, and then Wednesday arrives and dinner is half done before I’ve taken my coat off!
Other Aromatics for Your Herb Infused Cream
- Garlic: Two or three cloves, crushed with the flat of a knife rather than chopped. Chopped garlic turns bitter in hot cream and you’ll taste it.
- Rosemary: One sprig. I’ve used two and regretted it, the batch came out tasting like pine cleaner.
- Sage: The one people are surprised by. Musty, a little savory, and it belongs anywhere there’s butter or potatoes.
- Thyme: Cheapest swap on the list. Four or five sprigs, stems and all, straight in.
- Tarragon: Faint licorice. If there’s chicken in the dish, use this one.
- Basil: Don’t heat it. Basil turns dull and brownish in hot cream, so put the leaves into cold cream and leave it in the fridge overnight instead.
- Oregano: Assertive, a bit bitter, and it will take over if you let it. Use half what you’d use of thyme.
- Dill: Grassy with a citrus edge. Salmon, potatoes, anything pointed at Scandinavia.
- Chervil: Somewhere between parsley and licorice, and almost impossible to buy. I grow it because I got tired of looking for it.
- Parsley: Skip it, is my advice. Parsley is clean and peppery and it vanishes completely in cream.
- Mint: Unexpected in a savory cream, and I mean that as a recommendation. Peas, lamb, young potatoes.
- Cilantro: You already know which side of cilantro you’re on. Bright and citrusy, and it goes anywhere the dish is headed toward chile or lime.
- Marjoram: Sweeter and softer than oregano. Use it when oregano would be too loud.
- Lemon Balm: Light citrus without the acid, which is the useful part, since acid and cream do not get along.
- Lavender: A teaspoon. Not a tablespoon. I made that mistake once and served four people something that tasted like soap, and they were all very polite about it.
Chefs Tips for Infused Cream
- Taste as You Go: Dip a spoon in at ten minutes and again at twenty. At ten it tastes like cream with a rumor of garlic in it. At twenty it tastes like something. That gap is the point, and you only find out where your own line sits by tasting it.
- Fresh Herbs, Always: Dried herbs give you dust. They don’t release oil into fat the way fresh sprigs do, and you end up straining out grit and wondering why nothing happened. The one exception is a dried chile, which behaves fine.
- Take It Off the Heat: Bring the cream up until the edges barely shimmer, then kill the burner and put a lid on. It keeps steeping for twenty minutes in the residual heat and it cannot split while it’s sitting there. Simmering it the entire time works too, I just walk away too often.
- Strain Twice: Fine mesh first, then again through the mesh lined with cheesecloth. And don’t press down on the garlic, all you’re doing is pushing solids through. Let it drip.
- Test One Thing at a Time: When you’re trying a new aromatic, do a half cup batch. Half a cup of cream and one herb, so you find out what tarragon tastes like in cream before you commit a pint of it to a dinner.
- Season Where It Lands: Don’t salt the cream. You’re pouring it into a sauce or a pot of potatoes that’s already seasoned, and salting twice is how you end up eating around your own food. Season the dish, not the cream.
- Two or Three, Not Eight: Garlic, rosemary, sage. That’s already three. Add a fourth and a fifth and you get something muddy that you can’t name, and I’ve made it, and it isn’t good. Restraint here pays.
- Make It the Night Before: It goes on steeping in the fridge, gently, and the next day it’s noticeably stronger. I started doing it by accident, left a jar overnight, and the gratin the following evening was better than any I’d made.
Wine Pairings
- Chardonnay (Mâcon-Villages, Burgundy)
Why it Works: A little oak, not much, which is what you want against cream that already has rosemary in it. The acidity handles the fat and the barrel note sits somewhere near the sage. This is my default the moment the cream has gone into pasta.
Tasting Notes: Lemon curd, hazelnut, white peach, wet stone
Suggested Label: Louis Jadot Mâcon-Villages - Grüner Veltliner (Kamptal, Austria)
Why it Works: White pepper and green herb, which sounds like an odd thing to say about a wine until you drink it next to thyme cream. High acid, no oak at all. Nothing on the plate has to fight it for attention.
Tasting Notes: Green apple, white pepper, lentil, lime zest
Suggested Label: Schloss Gobelsburg Gobelsburger Grüner Veltliner - Viognier (Barossa Valley, Australia)
Why it Works: Apricot and white flowers against tarragon cream on chicken. Medium body, so it sits at the same weight as the sauce instead of underneath it. The Condrieu version is better and about four times the price, and I’ve bought it twice.
Tasting Notes: Apricot, honeysuckle, ginger, orange blossom
Suggested Label: Yalumba Y Series Viognier - Syrah (Crozes-Hermitage, Northern Rhône)
Why it Works: Sage and beef fat and tannin is an old combination and it still works. Northern Rhône Syrah runs peppery and savory rather than jammy, and that savory edge is the part that gets on with the rosemary.
Tasting Notes: Black pepper, violet, blackberry, cured meat
Suggested Label: Delas Frères Crozes-Hermitage Les Launes - Dry Riesling (Mosel, Germany)
Why it Works: My pick the second dill goes into the cream, and for anything with salmon or new potatoes sitting under it. Bone dry, high acid, and the citrus lands right next to the herb rather than on top of it.
Tasting Notes: Lime, slate, green apple, white flower
Suggested Label: Dr. Loosen Dry Riesling
Faq’s
Yes, and you should. Thyme, tarragon, dill and basil all work, and there’s a list of fifteen further up the page with quantities. The only rule I’d hold you to is two or three aromatics at a time, not six.
Good for as much as 5 days in a sealed jar. Let it cool all the way down before you put it in there, because warm cream in a closed jar in a cold fridge gives you condensation, and condensation gives you a watery top inch.
Yes, just leave the garlic out. A split vanilla bean, a cinnamon stick, a strip of orange peel, or lavender if you’re careful with it. Same method, same timing, and it’s very good poured over a warm crumble.
Pull it off the burner straight away. You want it hot to the touch, somewhere around 180°F, with the edges just starting to shimmer. Once it boils the fat separates out and there’s no fixing it, you start again.
You can, and it’ll separate a bit on thawing the way plain cream does. That’s fine if it’s going into a sauce or a soup where it gets stirred and heated anyway. I wouldn’t freeze it for anything where the texture is the point.
Not really, in my experience. Twenty minutes is a good target and overnight in the fridge is stronger and still lovely. Where you get into trouble is quantity rather than time, five sprigs of rosemary in twenty minutes will bulldoze everything.
The oils are gone after one batch, so a second round is mostly for show. Fresh sprigs each time. Though the strained-out garlic is soft and sweet and I’ve spread it on toast rather than bin it.
Thicken the dish, not the cream. Reducing the cream on its own is asking for it to split. Once it’s in a sauce, let that reduce, or finish with a little cold butter off the heat.
It will, but not as stiffly, and hot infusion is the reason. The heat knocks the fat around enough that it holds less air. For whipping, use the cold method instead, herbs straight into cold cream, into the fridge overnight, then strain and whip as usual.
Mashed potatoes, straight in where the milk goes. Pan sauces. Risotto at the end. A potato gratin, which is where I use most of mine. Drizzled over roasted carrots or a piece of salmon. Scrambled eggs, if nobody’s watching.
Equipment Needed
- Start with a Small Saucepan: Your saucepan is perfect for gently warming the cream, letting the garlic and herbs release their aroma as they infuse together.. It’s all about combining flavors SLOWLY in a simmer.
- Use a Fine-Mesh Strainer: This tool ensures your cream is perfectly smooth, leaving the herbs and garlic out of the final product. It’s your flavor sifter!
- Ready a Bowl: This catches the infused cream once you’ve strained it. Yep, that simple:)
- Spoon or Spatula in Hand: Keep a spoon or spatula handy to stir the cream occasionally, making sure the flavors blend smoothly. It’s your key to even flavor distribution.
- Opt for a Cheesecloth (Optional): For an ultra-smooth texture, line your strainer with cheesecloth. It’s like the final polish for your cream.
Infused Cream
Ingredients
- 1 cup Heavy Cream
- 2-3 cloves of garlic, lightly crushed
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- 1 sprig of sage
Instructions
- Pour the heavy cream into the small saucepan. Add the crushed garlic cloves and the sprigs of rosemary and sage.
- Place the saucepan on the stove over low heat. You want the cream to be warm to the touch but not boiling. The goal is to gently heat the cream to allow the flavors of the garlic and herbs to infuse without curdling the cream.
- Let the cream simmer on the lowest heat setting for about 20-25 minutes. Keep an eye on it to ensure it doesn’t come to a boil. Stir occasionally to ensure that the flavors are evenly distributed.
- After the cream has been infused to your liking (you can taste it to check the strength of the flavor), remove the saucepan from the heat.
- Set the fine-mesh strainer over a bowl and pour the cream through to remove the garlic and herbs. If you want to ensure the cream is completely smooth, you can line the strainer with cheesecloth.
- Allow the infused cream to cool slightly before using it in your recipe. If you’re not using it immediately, store it in the refrigerator.
Hi Dave. I ‘ve been cooking and baking for many years. Your technique is amazing. I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time. Your site is now in my favorites category. One morning I wondered if anybody had ever infused cream or half and half or anything like that with Rosemary, and then I found your site. The Rosemary, garlic and sage combination was something I wasn’t even thinking about. I changed your recipe slightly to accommodate my Au Gratin potato recipe that I wanted to give a flavor of Rosemary to. So instead of just having a Rosemary flavor upgrade I ended up with the Rosemary, sage and garlic upgrade, which was a win win all the way around. Instead of using heavy cream I used half and half because that was the trick in my Au Gratin potato recipe. I can see myself using your techniques that you’re teaching in a lot of my future cooking. It is so simple and yet I had never thought of it. Dinner was truly a hit with my upgraded Au Gratin potato recipe using your infusion methods. Thanks for the wonderful new way of thinking.
Ed
Hey Ed,
I can not tell you how deeply happy it makes me to read this!!! It is exactly the goal of my site – I want to teach, explore and create amazing stuff. I want to share it with all of you and then have you guys make it your own. I am so happy to be a part of the journey!!
Dave