How do you cook your weeds?

Oftentimes we may love our weeds just because they came from the earth… but the people we feed them to may think otherwise. Or, maybe our weeds taste good enough, but they could use some kind of preparation that makes them so much better.

What are your favorite ways of preparing the weeds?

One that I like is to boil them into a soup. To make it especially rich, add garlic and butter; but as long as it has nettles or other nourishing herbs, it’s good on its own. Typically I try to make soups like this at least half nettles because those are my favorite greens and it is hard to imagine getting tired of them. However, if it does have fat and garlic then I’d want to add something bitter like garlic mustard, wild lettuce, or horseradish greens.

Something important for cooking bitter aster-family greens. Dandelions aren’t just edible when young in spring. They can be eaten all through summer, as they have tender leaves continuously growing. The same for wild lettuce. Their big leaves are not particularly more bitter compared to the little ones, and anyway, once we start to eat bitter and introduce it to our dishes in a balanced, delicious way, we may even begin to crave and love these bitter flavors.

Sometimes one bitter is not the same as the other. The quality of bitter in wild lettuce is different from that of dandelion or burdock leaf, and also different from horseradish, garlic mustard, and the rest of the mustardy bitter herbs. Sometimes we may want one kind of bitter and not another.

I also feel that bitter greens are better cooked, and they are typically evened out with water, becoming less intense and more flavorful. They are also good made into a stir fry with cheese or other flavorful and savory components.

Do you have some good ways of cooking bitter herbs too?

There are of course milder salad greens among our weeds. Some of my favorites are mallow, galinsoga, and lady’s thumb. These tend to go in the same place as cultivated greens…but taste…maybe a little better?

I would like to hear from you!

My default recipe for anything strange, whether of animal or plant origin, involves onions, garlic, and curry powder!  Greens and weeds can simply be chopped up and added to a pot of curry already cooking and focused on other ingredients, or they can be stir-fried with the above spices directly in a bit of oil or grease, with some water added if they need more steaming...the more bitter or strong they are, the longer they cook.

I really like to cook something for the first time, by itself.  Maybe in the skillet or steamed with butter.   Just to see how it is.

After that mixing with eggs is nice or in a stew.   A lot of times I add a handful of greens to the blender when I make a smoothie or juice them up with carrots and apples.    

We were talking about this very thing you and I, you've inspired me to try doing what I do with other weeds, if we're not eating them in salads, stirfrying or sauteying them, but with the dandylion leaves, as my husband thinks they're bitter in salads.  I've partly solved the problem by only putting a few in with other less-bitter leaves for salads, but maybe cooking them will solve his problem more thoroughly.

I find whole leaves of dandelion in a salad challenging and my wife and kids simply reject them. But I can chiffonade them first and then we like the hint of bitter it adds to every bite. They also do just seem to disappear into stews, casseroles, or stir-fries. Other weeds like the sorrels and lambs quarters are easier.

We really enjoy eating bitters as salad, with some vinegar and an oil. Usually balsamic and olive, using dandelions or chicory (I grow both specifically for eating raw). We don't eat the really bitters like burdock, for example, I feel there's no real need for that. We basically don't eat lettuce (outside of a BLT) because it's no fun.
As for the more mild greens, I'm another one sauteeing them up with onions and garlic and maybe throwing in a couple of eggs. We have a few local super-nutritious greens that need to be cooked (oxalic acid) and that's my go-to.

Another good way to eat greens is ohitashi style- you blanch, squeeze, and then add a broth and some toppings. I like doing it with tastier greens like chrysanthemums, it's not great for bitter but for strong tastes (or for greens without much taste) it works nicely. https://www.justonecookbook.com/spinach-ohitashi-japanese-spinach-salad-with-bonito-flakes/