Herbalism becomes easier to sustain when the plants are woven into the meals, rhythms, and rituals already shaping our days.
Sometimes that looks like tulsi blended into pesto, nettles stirred into a yogurt dip, or cinnamon steeped overnight in a cool jar of water. It can also look like a spoonful of adaptogenic honey in warm milk, Fire Cider whisked into salad dressing, or an herbal cordial poured into sparkling water.
In this episode of The Dancing Willow Podcast, I’m joined by herbalist, chef, author, and Kosmic Kitchen founder Sarah Kate Benjamin for a conversation about kitchen herbalism, Ayurveda, seasonal living, motherhood, and postpartum nourishment.
Sarah Kate’s work reflects a philosophy we hold closely at Dancing Willow Herbs: plant medicine does not have to sit outside ordinary life. It can be delicious, creative, sensory, and woven into the ways we already feed and care for ourselves.
This blog post is adapted from and inspired by our conversation for those who would rather read than listen. For the full nuance and to glean all of Sarah Kate's widsom, listen to the full episode here!
What Is Kitchen Herbalism?
Kitchen herbalism is the practice of incorporating medicinal plants into everyday food and cooking.
Many familiar culinary herbs and spices live at the meeting point between food and medicine. Rosemary, thyme, sage, ginger, cinnamon, mint, basil, nettle, oats, and lemon balm can all become part of an ongoing relationship with the plants.
Kitchen herbalism may include:
- Herbal pestos and sauces
- Infused oils and vinegars
- Herbal honeys and pastes
- Fire cider
- Herbal cordials
- Broths and porridges
- Mineral-rich infusions
- Culinary spice blends
The goal is not to turn every meal into a complicated protocol. It is to create simple, pleasurable ways to work with herbs regularly.
From Chronic Fatigue to the Herbal Kitchen
Sarah Kate’s kitchen herbalism practice deepened during a period of chronic fatigue, inflammation, joint pain, and low energy.
Although she was already studying herbalism, the plants had not yet become part of her daily rhythm. With the guidance of herbalist Emily Ruff, she began looking beyond individual remedies and toward deeper nourishment.
She brought more protein into her diet, worked consistently with adaptogens, and incorporated herbs into meals she was already preparing. Tulsi became pesto, herbal infusions waited in the refrigerator, and plants were folded into food rather than added as another task.
This distinction matters because fatigue changes our capacity. Even a supportive wellness practice can feel overwhelming when we are depleted.
Sarah Kate began asking a practical question:
How can we weave plants into everyday cooking? How can we make medicine while we are already making dinner?
Create Herbal Ingredients, Not More Chores
Tinctures and teas are valuable, but they are not the only ways to take herbs.
Sarah Kate encourages people to create versatile herbal ingredients that can be used throughout the week.
An infused vinegar can become salad dressing. Herbal oil can be drizzled over vegetables. A medicinal honey can sweeten tea, oatmeal, or yogurt. A green herbal sauce can accompany eggs, grains, meat, or roasted vegetables.
The best herbal preparation is often the one you will actually use.
Consistency does not always come from discipline. Sometimes it comes from making the medicine delicious, visible, and easy to incorporate into what you already love to eat!
Creating a Dancing Willow Herbs Kitchen Apothecary
Many Dancing Willow Herbs preparations were created in this same spirit. They can be used as remedies, but they can also become flavorful, functional ingredients in a home kitchen apothecary.
Fire Cider
Fire Cider is a warming herbal vinegar that fits naturally into both the pantry and the medicine cabinet.
Beyond taking it by the spoonful, try adding it to:
- Salad dressings
- Soups and broths
- Marinades
- Roasted vegetables
- Sautéed greens
- Sparkling water
Because it already contains vinegar and warming herbs, Fire Cider can replace part of the acid in savory recipes while bringing a lively herbal heat. Shop Fire Cider!
Adaptogenic Honey Paste
Our Adaptogenic Honey Paste combines ashwagandha, shatavari, rose, cardamom, and raw local honey.
It can be taken by the spoonful or stirred into:
- Warm milk
- Oatmeal
- Yogurt
- Chia pudding
- Cacao
- Nut butter
- Energy bites
- Adaptogenic Honey Peanut Butter Cookies
It turns adaptogens into a comforting food ritual rather than another capsule. Shop Adaptogenic Honey Paste!
Essential Honeys
Our Essential Honeys offer an easy way to bring aromatic plants into everyday meals and drinks.
They can be:
- Stirred into tea
- Drizzled over yogurt
- Paired with cheese
- Whisked into dressing
- Added to sparkling water
- Spread over toast
- Spooned over fresh fruit
Rose, lavender, ginger, orange, and bergamot each create a different sensory experience. Kitchen herbalism is not only about medicinal actions; it is also about flavor, aroma, pleasure, and the atmosphere a plant creates. Shop Essential Honeys!
Damiana Love Cordials
Our Damiana Love Cordials bridge herbalism, pleasure, creativity, and celebration.
They can be added to:
- Sparkling water
- Mocktails or cocktails
- Warm cacao
- Coffee
- Drizzed on top of ice cream
These cordials are really just delicious, fun and a great way to bring more herbal medicine into the kitchen... not to mention the aphrodisiac properties of Damiana. Ooh la la... Shop Damiana Love Cordials!
You Do Not Need a Large Herb Garden
Growing medicinal plants creates a beautiful kind of intimacy. When we tend a plant from seed to harvest, we experience it as a living being rather than only as dried material.
Still, a large garden is not required.
A single pot of mint, rosemary, basil, thyme, or tulsi can become a meaningful beginning. So can visiting a farmers market, learning about the dried plants in your pantry, or becoming more intentional with the herbs in your spice cabinet.
At Dancing Willow Herbs, our apothecary helps make these plants accessible to people who may not have the space, time, or desire to grow and prepare everything themselves.
A community apothecary can become an extension of the home garden and kitchen.
Ayurveda and Seasonal Herbalism
Ayurveda helped Sarah Kate understand herbs through the qualities of nature, the seasons, and the body.
The three doshas: vata, pitta, and kapha, are created from combinations of the elements and describe patterns we can observe within ourselves and the world around us.
Vata: Aire & Ether
Vata is light, dry, cold, quick, and mobile. Vata-dominant people are often creative, sensitive, imaginative, quick-thinking, and drawn to movement or change. They may have a lighter build, cold hands and feet, irregular digestion, and a nervous system that is easily overstimulated.
When balanced, vata brings inspiration, flexibility, and intuition. When excessive, it may show up as anxiety, restlessness, scattered thinking, poor sleep, dryness, tension, or feeling ungrounded.
Vata is usually supported by:
- Warm, cooked meals
- Soups, stews, oats, and root vegetables
- Ghee, butter, and nourishing oils
- Ginger, cinnamon, coriander, and cardamom
- Moistening herbs such as marshmallow and licorice
- Regular meals and consistent sleep
- Warm baths, foot soaks, and body oiling
- Slower rhythms and grounding routines
Pitta: Fire and Water
Pitta is hot, sharp, intense, and penetrating. Pitta-dominant people are often focused, ambitious, organized, passionate, and naturally drawn to leadership. They may have a strong appetite, a medium or muscular build, a warm body temperature, and a tendency to approach life with determination.
When balanced, pitta brings clarity, courage, and the ability to get things done. When excessive, that intensity may become irritability, perfectionism, criticism, inflammation, overheating, skin redness, or digestive burning.
Pitta is usually supported by:
- Cooling, hydrating foods
- Cucumber, coconut, cilantro, and leafy greens
- Rose, mint, marshmallow, and chamomile
- Bitter herbs and vegetables
- Cooling or room-temperature herbal infusions
- Less spicy, oily, and heavily fried food
- Time near water and in cooler environments
- Slower meals, fewer demands, and permission to rest
Kapha: Earth and Water
Kapha is cool, heavy, moist, steady, and slow. Kapha-dominant people are often nurturing, patient, loyal, grounded, and emotionally steady. They may have a stronger or broader build, good endurance, slower digestion, and a natural preference for comfort, familiarity, and routine.
When balanced, kapha brings stability, compassion, and resilience. When excessive, it may show up as heaviness, sluggishness, congestion, low motivation, emotional holding, or resistance to change.
Kapha is usually supported by:
- Warm, lighter meals
- Bitter greens and cruciferous vegetables
- Ginger, turmeric, black pepper, and warming spices
- Less heavy, oily, and overly sweet food
- Regular movement and invigorating exercise
- Stimulating teas and body scrubs
- New experiences and changes in routine
- Getting outside and creating more momentum
These categories are not meant to become rigid labels or rules. A person may have a naturally vata constitution and still experience a pitta imbalance during a hot, stressful season. Ayurveda gives us a language for noticing what is present and gently inviting the opposite qualities back in.
A Simple Cold Herbal Infusion
Cold herbal infusions are one of Sarah Kate’s most relied-upon practices, especially during summer and motherhood.
To prepare one, add fresh or dried herbs to a jar, cover them with cool water, refrigerate overnight, and strain the next morning.
Sarah Kate’s favorite herbs for summer infusions include:
- Tulsi
- Lemon balm
- Nettle
- Chamomile
- Marshmallow root
- Cinnamon chips
Marshmallow root is especially well suited to cold water and creates a moistening infusion. Lemon balm and chamomile offer aromatic calm, while nettle contributes rich plant minerals.
This kind of preparation is simple, hydrating, and realistic for busy seasons of life.
Ayurvedic Self-Care Beyond the Kitchen
Herbalism can also be experienced through the skin, senses, and nervous system.
Sarah Kate shared practices such as body oiling, foot baths, salt scrubs, swimming, and seasonal movement.
Herbal Oils for Abhyanga
Abhyanga is the Ayurvedic practice of applying oil to the body through intentional self-massage.
Dancing Willow herbal-infused oils can be incorporated into this practice to support grounding, dry skin, evening relaxation, body awareness and seasonal self care. You can find our herbal oils here!
The ritual can be as simple as warming the oil between your hands and slowly massaging it into the feet, arms, shoulders, or entire body.
Bath Salts for Foot Soaks
A foot soak is an accessible alternative for anyone without a bathtub or the time for a full bath.
Add Dancing Willow herbal bath salts to a basin of warm water and soak the feet before bed or after a physically demanding day.
This practice can be especially grounding during cold, dry, or stressful seasons.
Motherhood and a Simpler Herbal Practice
Motherhood changed the form of Sarah Kate’s herbal practice.
Before having her son, she had more time to cook, develop recipes, and experiment. After becoming a mother, she began relying on the preparations that fit into real life.
Cold infusions became an anchor. Even on a day when dinner was ordered out, she could know she had received deep nourishment from her herbal teas.
Her experience offers an important reminder: an herbal practice does not need to remain the same through every season of life.
Sometimes herbalism is elaborate medicine making. Sometimes it is one jar of tea, a spoonful of honey, or a handful of spices added to dinner.
Postpartum Food as Medicine
Sarah Kate’s experience of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum deepened her relationship with food as medicine.
During this phase of increased healing, breastfeeding and emotional orientation around a massive life shift, her body wanted warm, rich, simple foods. She felt extremely nourished by foods like congee, chicken, protein, broths, ghee and butter, ginger, turmeric, dates, shatavari and mineral rich herbs.
Even though the weather was warm, raw foods did not feel supportive. Her body wanted meals that were cooked, grounding, fatty, salty, and easy to digest.
Postpartum nourishment is not only about calories. It is about helping a person recover while they care for a new life.
As Sarah Kate says in the episode, mothers need to be mothered.
Bringing warm food, stocking a freezer, reheating meals, washing dishes, preparing tea, and keeping snacks within reach can all become profound forms of care.
Begin with One Herbal Practice
You do not need to rebuild your entire pantry to begin practicing kitchen herbalism.
Start with one preparation that genuinely fits your life:
- Add fresh herbs to pesto
- Make a cold infusion
- Stir herbal honey into tea
- Use Fire Cider in a vinaigrette
- Add more spices to dinner
- Make a weekly herbal sauce
- Take an evening foot bath
- Massage your feet with herbal oil
- Prepare soup for someone postpartum
Kitchen herbalism becomes sustainable when it is pleasurable, flexible, and ordinary.
The plants do not always require us to create another ritual. Sometimes they are simply asking to be woven into the rituals we already have.
Listen to the Full Episode
Listen to Creating a Kitchen Apothecary with Sarah Kate Benjamin on The Dancing Willow Podcast for our complete conversation about herbal cooking, Ayurveda, seasonal living, motherhood, postpartum nourishment, and The Kosmic Kitchen.
Connect more with Sarah Kate through The Kosmic Kitchen and her substack!
Explore Dancing Willow Herbs
Visit our Durango apothecary or explore our online collection of herbal honeys, Fire Cider, cordials, infused oils, bath salts, teas, and handcrafted botanical preparations to begin creating your own kitchen and home apothecary.