Many types of weeds grow in gardens yearly and offer unusual culinary experiences. In addition to garden species, it is worth trying other types of weeds and wild plants.
Chickweed, a common garden weed, offers a unique culinary experience. Beyond its use in healing teas, it can be a delightful addition to healthy meals. Its best flavor is in spring, when it’s young, fresh, and bursting with vitamins. But don’t limit yourself to a season, it’s a year-round treat. Its soft, fresh aroma and taste make it a perfect fit for salads, healthy drinks, soups, and even soup dumplings or vegetable dishes.
Repelling, yet Tasty
Nettle can also be used to prepare dishes. You can also prepare herbal tea and, at the same time, use its young leaves or shoots in other creative ways. It can be prepared similarly to spinach or chopped into soup or vegetable salad. It is also worth trying in omelets, spreads, puddings, or healthy drinks. There are also recipes on how to make nettle pesto. Well, you can use other species besides nettles, such as wild garlic, dandelion, sorrel, Plantago, or Glechoma. The plant leaves with tiny purple flowers stand out for their pleasant, spicy taste. You can use them in salads, soups, broths and spreads, cottage cheese, or herb butter. In addition to the fresh use, you can also use it dried and spice up meat dishes.
Weed Salad
Most edible weeds are suitable for preparing salads, and focusing on the youngest leaves and shoots is most promising. Shepherd’s purse, dandelion, sorrel, common purslane, Mexican tea (try to use it as stuffing for crepes), knotweed, symphytum, or mountain spinach (orache). There are so many options for salads. You can even try adding daisies. Decorate healthy dishes, salads, and vegetable dishes, mix them into herbal butter or cottage cheese, and spreads. However, you can also try them when decorating and garnishing sweet dishes. Solidago, one of the fastest-growing and most invasive weeds, is also exciting. If this plant has spread in your garden, in the spring, pick young shoots and add them to fresh salads and vegetable dishes before they bloom. Stems that have been peeled also have an appealing taste.
Dreaded Ground Elder
Ground elder is a fast-growing, unpleasant weed, similar to a solidago, which is hard to eliminate. However, people have always enjoyed it. It can be used in cold and hot kitchen, salads, soups, risotto, smoothies, side dishes, vegetable dishes, pancake filling, savory cakes, or canapés. There is even a recipe for unconventional spicy chips from its leaves. Young leaves are harvested from the ground elder, have a softer taste, and contain vitamins and minerals. Frequently occurring weeds also include garlic mustard. Its leaves will delight you with their spicy flavor. You can also use this plant with a pleasant garlic aroma in salads and soups, but it is also worth trying to decorate and flavor sandwiches and canapés. Since it loses its aroma when cooking, using it only in a cold kitchen is preferable. You can experiment with it in many ways. Collecting and consuming weeds unaffected by chemicals and fertilizers is essential. Ideally, they should come from ecological gardens. It is important to process the weed in the kitchen as soon as it is harvested.
Text: Daniel Košťál, photo: Pexels
