How to Make An Herbed Ice Bowl

Keep your dip or crudités cold with an herbed ice bowl. Just snip a variety of fresh herbs, like parsley, sage, chives and thyme, and something colorful, like grated carrot into a shallow dish and add water to cover by an inch or two.

Herbed Ice Bowl Instructions

Suspend a smaller but heavier bowl on top and freeze. Coat the outside of the top bowl with cooking spray to make it easier to remove later. The top bowl will displace water and create a concave surface.

Once your herbed water has frozen, unmold it and you'll have an ice-dish made of colorful herbs. I like to use stainless steel nesting bowls and skip one size in the set. I add a brick to the top bowl for weight. (This is my all-purpose indoor brick. It's actually amazing how often it comes in handy for odd jobs.) Ring molds look great decorated this way too, with dip in a dish in the center and crackers on a platter nearby.

Herbed Ice Bowl Tips and Tricks

If you mix crushed ice with the water, the arrangement will freeze faster and you'll be able to keep all the herbs from migrating to the bottom of the bowl.

I've used herbed ice bowls to hold fruit, fresh vegetables, salad and dip (inside a clear glass dish).

Once you've sourced your bowls, this project can be completed and popped into the freezer in fifteen minutes, and the results look spectacular. There's no waste, either. Once the herbs have thawed, you can use them in soup stock.

Special Notes: If you don't have fresh herbs around, use green vegetables, like kale, cabbage, carrot tops and spinach.

For your first time, do a dry run by making an ice bowl with water only to see if you like the look and thickness of the nesting bowl arrangement you've selected. The walls of the bowl at its thinnest point should be at least an inch and a half thick.

Keep your herb bowl on a platter with a rim to catch melting water, and watch it occasionally throughout the evening to make sure it doesn't overflow.