Overview
About Mountain savory
Mountain savory is the perennial, woody half of the savory pair: Satureja montana, sold dried as winter savory, more resinous and considerably more pungent than the soft annual summer savory it is often sold beside.
It is the peppery note in herbes de Provence and the traditional herb for beans across southern Europe. On the trigger chart it carries a single non-clean mark, a moderate salicylate grade, and that grade is worth reading carefully because it is a shared dried-spice default in this dataset rather than a measurement taken from savory.
Sensitivities
How Mountain savory scores
Watch for
What trips people up
- Its salicylate grade of C is a block default shared byte for byte with a group of other dried seasonings rather than a savory-specific figure. Aromatic dried herbs do tend to sit moderate on salicylate lists, so treat C as a plausible prior rather than as evidence.
- Histamine liberation is unrated, not clean. If you are strict on liberators, the blank means untested.
- The essential oil is a different proposition from the herb. Savory oil is rich in carvacrol and thymol and is sold as a concentrated antimicrobial supplement, at doses no amount of seasoning approaches.
- Winter and summer savory are used differently in the kitchen even where they grade alike. Winter savory is tougher, more bitter and wants long cooking; summer savory is soft enough to finish a dish with.
- It is a Lamiaceae herb, the mint and oregano family, so people with a known reaction to that family should treat it as related rather than new.
Diet fit
Where it fits
Swap ideas
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FAQ
Common questions about Mountain savory
What is the difference between winter savory and summer savory?
They are two different species used for two different jobs. Winter or mountain savory is Satureja montana, a woody perennial with stiff leaves, a strong resinous pepperiness and a bitterness that needs cooking out, so it goes in early with beans and stews. Summer savory is Satureja hortensis, a soft annual, milder and sweeter, closer to thyme, and it can be added late or used fresh. If a recipe just says savory and you are in Europe it usually means summer savory; in a herbes de Provence blend it is usually the winter kind.
Is savory high in salicylates?
It grades moderate, but the honest answer is that the grade is not specific to savory. This value is a shared default across a block of dried seasonings in our dataset rather than a measured figure for Satureja. Dried aromatic herbs generally do sit in the moderate to high salicylate band on published elimination diet lists, so the grade is a reasonable prior. If you are running a strict salicylate elimination, bay leaf and marjoram both grade clean and do similar work in bean dishes and slow braises.
Why is savory traditionally cooked with beans?
The folk reason is that it reduces the gas from beans, which is why German cooks call it Bohnenkraut, the bean herb. There is no good evidence that it does anything to the GOS that actually causes the fermentation, so treat that as tradition rather than as a mechanism. The practical reason it works is culinary: savory is peppery and slightly bitter, which cuts the flatness of long cooked pulses, and it holds up to the hours of simmering that would destroy a softer herb.
References
Read the background
Ratings reflect the Triggerbites ingredient database and may vary with portion size and preparation.