31 Recipes To Add A Sprig Of Rosemary To Your Cooking
A sprig of rosemary is a powerful thing. We don't think of too many herbs as brash — that's normally reserved for big-hitting chiles and spice mixes, but the description fits rosemary. While thyme and oregano are content to freshen up a recipe or meld into the background of sauces and soups, rosemary announces itself with clarity.
Its piney, minty aroma is unmistakable, and its strength holds up to longer cooking times that would overpower other herbs. Rosemary is flavorful enough that it is one of the only herbs that can stand alone as a primary ingredient — infusing butter as you baste a steak or adding an evergreen brightness to baked goods.
Of course, as with any ingredient this distinct, rosemary doesn't work in everything. Rosemary shortbread cookie? Yes, please. Rosemary in your salad? That might be a bit much. But that selectivity doesn't mean you don't have plenty of options for your fresh sprig of rosemary; you just might need a little help figuring it all out. That is where we come in.
1. Pasta With Burrata And Charred Tomatoes
In a deeply flavored, long-simmered tomato sauce, the taste of rosemary can overpower, but in a lighter dish like this, it can be just the wake-up call you need. Rosemary inhabits every aspect of this pasta, including the olive oil that's drizzled on top. This infused oil combines with a light tomato sauce, blackened tomatoes, and burrata to form a dish that's as complex as it is fresh.
2. Burnt Cinnamon, Orange, And Rosemary Infused Vinegar
Rosemary-infused olive oils are a popular ingredient in the kitchen, but infused vinegar can be even more useful. This recipe needs to rest for a week before it's ready, but once it is, it will liven up anything it touches. Heating vinegar for five minutes and then bottling it with a charred cinnamon stick, orange peel, and rosemary is enough to transform basic white wine vinegar into something that is smoky, tangy, and herbal at the same time.
Use it to make the best vinaigrette you've ever tasted, or mix it with some honey and drizzle it over desserts.
Recipe: Burnt Cinnamon, Orange, And Rosemary Infused Vinegar
3. Classic Pasta E Fagioli
This pasta e fagioli is the dictionary definition of comfort food. A hearty broth that's packed with ditalini pasta and white beans gets layers of flavor from vegetables, pancetta, and the real kicker: a rind of pecorino Romano cheese.
Those savory ingredients get a much-needed touch of green from rosemary, which adds a woodsy aroma that complements this bowl of Italian home-style cooking. It can warm you in the winter or satisfy you after a summer's day out. And no matter when you make it, it's going to taste even better the next day.
Recipe: Classic Pasta E Fagioli
4. Herby Pigs In A Blanket
You don't need us to nudge you to make pigs in a blanket — one of the most beloved party foods — so let's just convince you to make this elevated version. Your normal pigs are delicious but stop at just salty and fatty in terms of flavor.
This recipe takes things to the next level by including a rosemary and garlic-infused butter in the mix. This adds a whole new world of punchy, acidic, and floral flavors, giving the popular appetizer a depth you never knew it needed.
Recipe: Herby Pigs In A Blanket
5. Slow Cooker Leg Of Lamb
Everyone knows mint and lamb make for an esteemed combo, which means rosemary's bright taste is a natural pairing too. Slow-cooking this leg of lamb doesn't just make it tender and shreddable, but it also gives the herbs and garlic in this recipe plenty of time to fully flavor the meat.
With just a few ingredients, you can prepare this dish in the morning, set up your slow cooker, and have it done in time for dinner with room to spare. It's an indulgent dinner with almost no effort — perfect for a lazy weekend family meal.
Recipe: Slow Cooker Leg Of Lamb
6. Cranberry Brie Bites
Baked Brie and jam are a classic combination, and this recipe turns it into a mini appetizer that mixes sweet and savory. With frozen, pre-made puff pastry as the base, you can turn out these cheesy and tart treats in no time at all.
Rosemary and garlic get paired up to deliver a bit of added complexity that naturally fits in with the rustic flavors. Crispy and creamy, the bites also turn out quite beautiful with the red pop of cranberry sauce that gives them a festive flair.
Recipe: Cranberry Brie Bites
7. Spiced Baked Butternut Squash
Butternut squash's sweet taste has helped it become a popular year-round option, but sometimes, it needs a little help to be less cloying. Here, that is done with a simple spice mixture that relies on a few big flavors to tame the squash's sweetness.
Cumin and chile flakes provide warmth and earthiness, while rosemary brings a needed contrast of herbaceous notes. This recipe takes almost an hour to cook but only 10 minutes to prepare, so it's great for throwing into the oven as a side while you get to work on the main course.
Recipe: Spiced Baked Butternut Squash
8. Roast Leg Of Lamb
If slow cooker lamb is a set-it-and-forget-it dinner, this is the opposite, but it's worth every minute. Pounding out a boneless leg of lamb tenderizes the meat and allows it to be rolled up with a delicious herbal filling.
Rosemary shares the stage with thyme and oregano in a simple breadcrumb crust that coats the outside of the roast with the help of Dijon. It's rich, hearty, and overflowing with flavor — an ideal dinner centerpiece when you have people to impress.
Recipe: Roast Leg Of Lamb
9. One-Pan Sheet Tray Mustard-Glazed Pork Tenderloin
Pork tenderloin is easy to cook, but it can be a little bland, which is why rosemary makes such a great partner. This sheet tray meal doesn't pull its punches — turning a whole tenderloin into a flavor-packed dinner that's accompanied by roasted potatoes and green beans.
Rosemary is as an essential herbal element in the glaze made with two types of Dijon, honey, orange juice and zest, and brown sugar. After this sweet and tart sauce is drizzled over the tenderloin and vegetables, everything should brown up nicely in your oven.
10. Red Wine-Braised Beef Short Ribs
There are few things as homey as a good braise, and a braise isn't complete without some pungent herbs giving it life. These red wine-braised short ribs are an easy extravagance, needing just a quick sear and deglazing with the red wine before going into the oven.
The addition of rosemary is perfect for the slow three-hour cooking time, and the herb helps to balance out the richness of the short ribs. Some chiles de árbol and cinnamon provide a bit of unexpected depth and heat, pushing an already special meal into unique territory.
11. Rustic Italian Wedding Soup
Rosemary has a real affinity for soup, as showcased in this rustic Italian favorite. If you've only ever had Italian wedding soup from a can, this recipe will show you what the dish can really be.
By taking the broth, which can be an afterthought in other versions, and injecting it with the flavors of lemon and Parmesan, everything else in this soup becomes that much better too. Rosemary makes its way into both the meatballs and the soup itself, providing the earthy backbone that ties everything together.
Recipe: Rustic Italian Wedding Soup
12. Olive Oil Cake With Poached Pears And Rosemary Cream
You have probably combined rosemary and olive oil quite a bit, but have you ever done it in a cake? This is a special treat that requires some extra effort for the poached pears. It's well worth it though because the results will leave anyone who tastes it satisfyingly stunned.
The real standout is the rosemary whipped cream, which brings some surprising savoriness to every bite when it's dolloped over the slices of cake and pears. This dessert is refined, uncommon, and just the thing for a special occasion.
Recipe: Olive Oil Cake With Poached Pears And Rosemary Cream
13. Simple Shrimp Mofongo
Mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish that features plantain mash — a superb base for a delicious shrimp stew. While the whole meal is full of big flavor from bacon, shrimp, and a tomato sauce, rosemary is tasked with giving it all some herbal depth. It's mixed into the mash and simmered with the tomato, infusing the whole dish with its lighter, slightly minty essence. This recipe just might have you putting away the grits and polenta for a new favorite way to serve shrimp.
Recipe: Simple Shrimp Mofongo
14. Classic Meat Loaf
This meat loaf is a wonderful anytime dinner that you can make with ingredients that almost everyone has on hand. Plus, it's a great way to use up some extra rosemary.
This version doesn't mess with success, hewing close to traditional flavors you love — from sautéed onions to Worcestershire sauce. The herbal mix of rosemary and sage provides the key fresh notes in a meal that is otherwise all about being as meaty as possible. This one should make even meat loaf skeptics happy.
Recipe: Classic Meat Loaf
15. Easy Zuppa Toscana
This surprisingly simple soup will drown your taste buds in Italian flavor. Sausage and kale may be the starring ingredients, but this recipe is actually all about the broth. It's rich, creamy, and lavish — combining shallot and garlic cooked in the rendered fat of sausage and bacon with potatoes, rosemary, and cream.
The soup gets a salty and spicy finishing touch from a sprinkle of fresh Parmesan and red pepper flakes. We would recommend some crusty bread too, but there may not be anything left to sop up.
Recipe: Easy Zuppa Toscana
16. Sous-Vide Rib Eye Steak
A great steak doesn't need much extra in the way of flavor, but this sous-vide steak is a welcome exception. Rosemary is sealed in a bag with garlic, thyme, lemon zest, and the steak itself — seasoning the meat as it slowly comes to temperature in the water.
The rosemary won't overshadow your rib eye, but it will add just enough extra depth to make a difference. After you sear the steak and baste it with butter, you'll be happy you included it.
Recipe: Sous-Vide Rib Eye Steak
17. Savory Cranberry Sauce
If you love your sweet canned cranberry sauce, godspeed, but this savory version may just make a convert out of you. Cranberries are a heavy hitter, and they need some fresh herbs that will stand up to their acidity — a good opportunity for some extra rosemary.
All the herbs get simmered with unsweetened cranberry juice and chicken stock before the liquid is used to cook fresh or frozen cranberries into a sauce. It's punchy and still a little bit sweet, but far more balanced and interesting than your normal cranberry sauce.
Recipe: Savory Cranberry Sauce
18. Herby Ham And Bean Soup
You don't always need to go big to have a good meal. This bean soup is vintage in all the best ways, combining a simple mirepoix of veggies with a ham hock and navy beans. The bone-in ham contributes a lot, but the herb bouquet with rosemary brings most of the extra flavor to the broth. This soup needs a low-and-slow simmer to make sure the beans and ham both get tender, but that is pretty much all the work.
Recipe: Herby Ham And Bean Soup
19. Instant Pot Pork Tenderloin
Pork tenderloin is a tasty cut of meat with a lean composition that makes it easy to dry out, which is why you should cook it in an Instant Pot. Pressure cooking turns a normally delicate roasting operation into a quick and easy meal that can have some juicy tenderloin on your plate in a half-hour. Rosemary, garlic, and thyme infuse a simple base of beef stock and balsamic vinegar, which gets cooked down to a sauce at the end with a little cornstarch slurry.
Recipe: Instant Pot Pork Tenderloin
20. Fall's Best Pasta
The brightness of rosemary feels at home in the summer, but its earthiness complements fall flavors just as well. This pasta is a bonanza of comforting ingredients: Roasted mushrooms and pasta are tossed in a simple sauce of butter and lemon, then served over a butternut squash purée.
Rosemary is cooked with both the squash and mushrooms, lending them its evergreen taste. It's a truly unique pasta dish that will taste like fall in a bowl.
Recipe: Fall's Best Pasta
21. Easy Fondant Potatoes
There aren't too many things that potatoes don't taste great with, but butter and herbs may be their most sublime partners. Fondant potatoes take that pairing to the max, soaking whole peeled spuds in a rich mixture of butter, rosemary, thyme, and garlic.
The tubers get browned, basted with herb butter and chicken broth, and baked. You end up with beautiful little towers of tender potatoes that are crispy on the outside and bursting with flavor. This might be the most decadent way you can cook a spud.
Recipe: Easy Fondant Potatoes
22. Honey Mustard Sheet Pan Baked Pork Chops
Rosemary sprigs can be a boon to sheet pan dinners like this one because their strong aroma can help to flavor the whole dish. That makes this easy recipe even more of a breeze, requiring nothing but a quick sear of the pork chops before everything gets tossed on the pan.
Parsnips, potatoes, and carrots provide a varied mix of root vegetables to be served alongside the chops. Everything gets coated in a generous honey and mustard glaze, balancing robustness with a little bit of sweetness.
23. Autumnal Herby Turkey Breast
Turkey gets a bad rap as a bland, dry meat, but recipes like this one are proof that's all wrong. A compound butter with rosemary, sage, garlic, and lemon juice that gets rubbed under the skin is the key to keeping your turkey breast moist.
The outside is brushed with olive oil for a little extra flavor and a whole lot of crispy skin. Roasting the breast over root vegetables doesn't just give you a side dish, it also helps elevate the turkey so it browns evenly.
Recipe: Autumnal Herby Turkey Breast
24. Simple Baked Escargot
Now it's time to get fancy, but thankfully, the kind of fancy that doesn't require much fuss. Get all the taste of escargot with half the work by using jarred or canned snails, which can be found pretty easily online. After you've acquired the snails, all that's left to do is make a simple butter and herb sauce with a splash of white wine.
One five-minute turn in the oven later, your escargot will be ready for showtime — accompanied by some cheesy, crusty bread.
Recipe: Simple Baked Escargot
25. Italian Baked Chicken Thighs
Chicken thighs are an ideal canvas for rosemary. They are fatty and more flavorful than chicken breasts, so the simple ingredients in this recipe are all you need to turn them into a nice meal.
The herbs are in perfect harmony with the olive oil, garlic, and lemon — with each component playing its part to season the humble chicken thigh. Baking them in the oven makes everything a cinch, and leaves you with a protein ready to be plated alongside potatoes, vegetables, or rice.
Recipe: Italian Baked Chicken Thighs
26. Vegetable Beef Barley Soup
A soup that you can make almost entirely from pantry and refrigerator staples is a wonderful thing — and this barley soup is just that. If you have beef, you can probably make this dish tonight; all it needs is broth, mirepoix, oil, and some barley. Just about any herb could help round out this dish, but rosemary is the kind of sturdy, enduring flavor that will work best. This recipe also comes together quickly for a soup, needing only about 30 minutes for everything to simmer.
Recipe: Vegetable Beef Barley Soup
27. Slow-Braised Lamb Shanks
This is a distinguished meal for an exceptional main ingredient. Lamb shanks may be a little tough, but after you slowly braise them in red wine, broth, and tomato paste, all that will be left is tender meat with intense flavor.
Rosemary is the instinctive — and correct — herb pairing here, with the long cooking time only heightening its minty taste. Serve this over a creamy mash to make use of every last drop of sauce. It's the kind of thing dinner party dreams are made of.
Recipe: Slow-Braised Lamb Shanks
28. Sheet Pan Spatchcocked Chicken, Mushrooms And Kale
If you've ever had trouble understanding what umami is, this recipe should clear up all the confusion. A full forest's worth of various mushrooms is served alongside juicy spatchcocked chicken with crispy skin that's seasoned with porcini powder for a double hit of umami. There is also a little bit of heat from cayenne and Fresno chiles.
Best of all, everything gets cooked on a single pan with sprigs of rosemary and sage — a time-honored and tasty combination of herbs.
29. Air Fryer Pork Chops
Pork chops are no stranger to sweet flavors, as the venerable pairing of pork and apple can attest to, but this recipe switches things up a bit with an ingredient that might be unexpected: maple syrup.
There should be no hesitation here though, since the syrup's nutty, caramel flavor has obvious appeal once it's mixed into a marinade with balsamic vinegar, garlic, and rosemary. It's a tangy, sugary combo that's tailor-made for pork. And cooking the chops in an air fryer gives you the precision to make sure they turn out juicy every time.
Recipe: Air Fryer Pork Chops
30. Lemon Verbena And Raspberry Meringue Pie
Lemon verbena has an herbal side to its citrusy flavor, so the rosemary in this recipe only helps to accentuate it. The two herbs are steeped in a milk-based mixture that's whisked into a silky custard. This layer gets a classic pairing in the form of meringue. Plus, there's raspberry compote — a tart counterweight to the other sweet ingredients. Baked in a pie crust, this dessert contains the best of summer in every bite.
31. Short Rib Cottage Pie
Rosemary works so well in stews and pies, so why not use it in a combination of the two: stew pie aka cottage pie? Cottage pie may not have a pastry crust, but it does have a pile of fluffy whipped potatoes baked over a red wine short rib stew — resulting in a dish that combines the best of beef bourguignon and a twice-baked potato.
From the fatty meat to the potatoes to the mushrooms, rosemary gets to work with some of its best friends in the kind of hearty meal it was made for.
Recipe: Short Rib Cottage Pie