Old dried parsley doesn't have much flavor*, but fresh parsley does. It is purportedly a good source of vitamin C and a sort of flavor catalyst, helping to enrich, blend, or extend other flavors. When using fresh herbs in place of dried, you want to triple the amount used.

*We used to keep opened bottles of little-used dried herbs/spices forever, but over time they lose their flavor.

1 unit dried = 3 units fresh

a handful of fresh.

parsley is lovely and a very useful substitute for salt (I make scrambled eggs with no salt but lots of parsley).

We just had pasta with the following:

half a chopped onion fried in the oil from a bottle of artichokes, add mushrooms, when sauteed add chopped olives and a handful of chopped fresh parsley.

serve.

No added salt.

For herbs with subtle flavors, it's easier to tell what they'll taste like by bruising them; roll fresh ones between your fingers until the juice stains your fingers, then smell them; for dried, rub them lightly until they crumble and then smell. (If dried herbs don't smell like anything when you do that, they're done for--get rid of them!)

I couldn't tell you exactly what it tastes like, but I know that I love fresh parsley. What I enjoy even more than fresh parsley, though, is fresh coriander, which is like parsley but with a +5 to deliciousness. That said, it is a very polarising herb, as those who like it love it and those who do not absolutely hate it.

Yep, I would be one of them people. Fresh coriander leaf is vile horrible stuff that makes food taste like it's had a bar of soap grated over it. Parsley does also have a strong and distinct flavour to my taste but it is a nice flavour.

Fresh parsley is a wonderful herb, while dried it's pretty tasteless. Use a handfull, and enjoy!

And Merry Chistmas!!

I actually bought some parsley once to use in a meatloaf recipe that called for it. After going through that bottle, I have not replaced it, because so far as I can tell it makes no difference whatsoever. I consider parsley a garnish, not an herb.

I've made parsley pesto when basil was out of season or I couldn't afford it. Parsley is slightly bitter and just very fresh-tasting. I can tell the difference when I leave it out of recipes, even though it's very hard to spot the flavor in among other ingredients.

P.

I would describe the flavor as intensely carroty. The plants are in the same family-so are dill, lettuce, celery and fennel.

Fresh parsley is also a wonderful breath-freshener, and a useful ingredient in making chicken soup.

Fresh parsley is crucial (leaves in almost anything, stalks in stocks & soups); dried parsley is a total waste of space. You cannot judge the one by the other.

I believe parsley also helps with digestive function (it seems that flavors that work well together also assist in digesting each other...like cooking beans with a bay leaf).

My mom taught me to use parsley only fresh, and raw, and AT THE LAST MOMENT otherwise as you correctly say it tastes of nothing at all. There are lots of spices you can use dried, and I have actually only used dried (thyme, oregano, cloves, juniper) and others you can use in both states (rosemary, sage, although I thing fresh sage is much better). BUt basil and parsley you cannot dry and hope to preserve a lot of flavour. I think of their flavour in part as being made of "fresh cut grass", which obviously doesn't survive being dried (or freezing, although frozen parsley and basil are much better than nothing, or dried parsley and basil)

What everyone said. Like coriander, fresh parsley adds lots of "grass" flavours and a very distinctive taste. I've never found dried parsley to add much of a taste to anything...

Parsley has some effect on the flavor -- it must. As a child, I never cared for the taste of kafta, a mix of ground meat (lamb and/or beef), parsley, and onions. I liked beef with onions, so I always blamed the parsley.

These days, I enjoy grilled kafta and appreciate the flavors that make it "not just another burger."