Wondering what to do with lemon balm? This guide covers how to pick it, cook it, store it, and swap it, plus 9 recipes to put it to work.

What is lemon balm?

Lemon balm is a leafy herb in the mint family with a soft lemon scent and a gentle, faintly sweet citrus flavor.

Crush a leaf between your fingers and you get the smell of lemon with none of the sourness.

Like its mint relatives it grows fast and spreads, so most cooks meet it fresh from a garden or a farmers market rather than a grocery shelf. It is at its best raw or barely warmed.

How to Use Lemon Balm

Heat is lemon balm's enemy. The volatile oils that carry its lemon aroma cook off quickly, so it goes in cold drinks, at the end of cooking, or steeped gently rather than boiled hard. This is why its natural home is iced tea, lemonade, and punch.

Drinks are where it earns its keep. Lemon Balm Lemonade and Iced Lemon Balm Tea let the herb sit front and center, while Lemon Balm Punch and Garden Punch fold it into a bigger mix of fruit and citrus.

Strawberry Balm Syrup captures the flavor in a quick sugar syrup you can keep in the fridge for cocktails or soda water.

It works in food too. Chop the fresh leaves into a green salad or a fruit salad, fold them into the dough for Honey & Lemon Balm Tea Biscuits, or scatter them over fish and chicken just before serving.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Lemon balm pairs naturally with honey, berries, stone fruit, and other tender herbs like mint and basil. It adds the smell and taste of lemon to anything you would normally squeeze lemon over, but without any acid.

The mistake to avoid is treating it like a hardy herb. Add it early to a long simmer and it goes flat and grassy, losing the very lemon note you wanted. Add it in the last minute or off the heat instead.

Dried lemon balm loses most of its punch, so reach for fresh whenever you can. If you only have dried, use it for tea, where a long steep coaxes out what flavor remains.

Substitutes

No lemon balm on hand? For a drink or a dessert, a strip of lemon zest plus a few fresh mint leaves comes closest, giving you both the citrus and the cool herbal lift.

Lemon verbena is the best single swap when you can find it, since its lemon flavor is stronger and holds up a little better to heat.

For a savory dish, lemon thyme or a squeeze of lemon juice with chopped parsley will stand in. None of these match lemon balm exactly, but each delivers the lemon-and-herb effect you are after.

Buying and Storing Lemon Balm

Pick bunches with bright green, unblemished leaves and a strong lemon smell when you rub one. Yellowing or wilted leaves have already lost their oils. Because it bruises easily, handle it gently and skip any bunch that looks slimy at the stems.

Store cut lemon balm like a bouquet, stems in a glass of water on the counter or loosely covered in the fridge, where it keeps for a few days.

For longer storage, freeze chopped leaves in ice cube trays with a little water, ready to drop into a pitcher of tea or lemonade.

If you grow it, harvest the leaves in the morning after the dew dries, when their oils are most concentrated, and cut often to keep the plant bushy.

Quick facts

In Chinese

柠檬香脂

British (UK) term

Lemon balm

en français

baume au citron

en español

melisa

Recipes using lemon balm

There are 9 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 9 recipes