Mint is a group of vigorous perennials whose leaves carry cooling, sweet aromas. Spearmint dominates cooking, peppermint confectionery; both spread by runners and will take over a bed if allowed.
What it is¶
The mints are a genus of about twenty species of aromatic perennials, plus a great many hybrids, all of which spread by creeping underground stems (rhizomes) and cross freely. Two matter most:
- Spearmint (Mentha spicata): the everyday cooking mint, the "garden mint" of Britain, flavoured mainly by carvone. Moroccan mint is a spearmint cultivar with a clean, strong flavour.
- Peppermint (Mentha × piperita): a natural hybrid of spearmint and watermint, high in menthol, grown chiefly for oil to flavour sweets, toothpaste and tea.
Others include apple mint (M. suaveolens), soft, woolly and mild; pineapple mint, a variegated form of it; ginger mint; chocolate mint, a peppermint cultivar; and pennyroyal (M. pulegium), historically a flavouring but now best avoided (see below).
Origins and history¶
Mint is native across much of the Old World and has been used since antiquity. Greek myth tells of the nymph Minthe, transformed into the plant by Persephone (or in some versions Demeter) — a story that explains the name rather than the herb's use. The Romans used mint in sauces, and it spread through Europe with them and with monastic gardens.
In Britain mint sauce with roast lamb is a long-established tradition, and in the Arab world fresh mint is steeped in sweet green tea, a custom that became Morocco's national drink in the nineteenth century. Peppermint was first described as a distinct plant in England at the end of the seventeenth century, and Mitcham in Surrey became famous for its peppermint oil in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Flavour and aroma¶
Spearmint is sweet, fresh and gently cooling, with a flavour close to that of spearmint chewing gum (carvone is the same molecule that, in its mirror-image form, dominates caraway). Peppermint is sharper and much colder, because menthol triggers the cold-sensing receptors in the mouth (see menthol-and-cooling); it can taste medicinal in savoury food. Dried spearmint loses its top notes but keeps a deep, almost hay-like sweetness that is valued in its own right in Middle Eastern and Turkish cooking.
In the kitchen¶
- British: mint sauce (chopped mint, sugar, vinegar) with lamb; mint boiled with new potatoes and peas.
- Middle East and North Africa: tabbouleh, fattoush, Moroccan mint tea, yoghurt dips. Dried mint is fried in butter or oil and drizzled over soups, lentils and Persian kashk-e bademjan (see persian-cuisine).
- Greece and Turkey: dried mint in stuffed vine leaves, meatballs and cacık; fresh mint in salads.
- India: raita, mint chutney, biryani layers.
- Southeast Asia: part of the fresh herb plate in Vietnamese and Thai cooking, and in larb.
- Drinks and sweets: mojitos, juleps, lemonade, chocolate, fruit salads.
Use spearmint for savoury food; peppermint is usually too aggressive except in sweets and tea. Add fresh mint at the end — heat turns it dull and brown.
💡 Dried mint is not a lesser version
In Turkish, Greek and Iranian dishes dried mint is often specified deliberately. Crumble it between your palms to release the aroma, or bloom it briefly in hot fat.
Buying and storing¶
Fresh mint keeps a week in the fridge with its stems in water and a bag over the top, or wrapped in damp paper. It wilts quickly at room temperature. Dry your own by hanging bunches in a warm, airy place out of sun until crisp, then strip and store the leaves whole in an airtight jar (see drying-herbs); good dried mint keeps its colour and smells strongly when rubbed.
Substitutes¶
basil or Thai basil can replace mint in Southeast Asian salads; lemon balm gives a softer, lemony freshness; shiso works in Japanese-leaning dishes. In cooked Middle Eastern dishes, one teaspoon of dried mint roughly replaces a tablespoon of chopped fresh. parsley provides greenness but not coolness.
Pairs well with¶
Lamb, peas, broad beans, new potatoes, cucumber, yoghurt, feta, lemon, lime, chocolate, strawberries, watermelon, green tea, cumin, coriander, parsley, dill and chilli.
Growing your own¶
Mint is almost too easy. It grows in sun or partial shade in moist, fertile soil and is fully hardy, dying back in winter and returning in spring. Its runners will colonise a border within a season or two, so grow it in a pot — or in a large bottomless bucket sunk into the ground with the rim a few centimetres proud. Different mints planted together tend to blur, so keep them apart.
Buy plants rather than seed: mints do not come true from seed. Divide or replant every few years when the centre of a pot dies out, and cut back hard after flowering for fresh growth. Orange pustules on the leaves are mint rust; cut infected stems to the ground and dispose of them.
Health and safety¶
Culinary mint is safe for almost everyone. Peppermint can worsen heartburn in some people. Concentrated essential oils are another matter: peppermint oil should not be applied to the faces of babies and young children, and pennyroyal oil is toxic and has caused fatal poisonings. Do not use pennyroyal in food.