Herbs are dry when the leaves crumble and the stems break when you bend them. For herbs, like sage, I grind them first. Thank you so much! With a food dehydrator, it will take about four hours to dry the sage leaves. If that’s not an option, you could use dark-colored jars that prevent light from reaching the contents. If you have a relatively small quantity of sage leaves to dry or if you're in a hurry, you can even use your microwave to dry the herbs. Your email address will not be published. Remove the leaves from the stems and store the leaves in an airtight container. "The microwave is quite a high temperature," she says. Rinsing the herbs in cool water once they have been collected and shaking them to remove excess moisture is important. I have a bumper crop of tarragon and I’m going to dry it and give it away to all my friends and family. wikiHow's. Drying them in a dehydrator leaves me with a reasonably fresh dried sage of much higher quality. Educational organization dedicated to delivering science-based information to people, businesses, and communities, {"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/4\/49\/Dry-Sage-Step-1.jpg\/v4-460px-Dry-Sage-Step-1.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/4\/49\/Dry-Sage-Step-1.jpg\/aid9502621-v4-728px-Dry-Sage-Step-1.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":306,"bigWidth":"728","bigHeight":"485","licensing":"