Eating healthy is free and easy when springtime brings the wild plants back to life! Come on in and see what's going into my salads here in Oregon's Willamette Valley. What's in your salad?
Wild Salads Are Incredible Salads!
I enjoy eating wild plants any time of year. I even challenge myself every year to find fresh greens for an end-of-the-year salad. But the wild salads of springtime are some of the best wild eating there is!
In my yard, spring has started early -- way too early -- a whole month early. But that means I'll be enjoying incredible salads, mostly for free, for the next few months. Into June, at least.
The plants are listed, by number, at the end of this post. That way, you can use this post to test your plant identification skills! Maybe you have some of these plants growing around you. They are waiting for you to get to know them! Do you already know or eat some of these plants?
With wild and homegrown ingredients, my salads are different every time. It all depends on what I have at hand. How do you decide what goes in your salads?
If you follow my posts for @lenasveganliving's great FruitsAndVeggies Contest and @woman-onthe-wing's new MakeItHealthy project, you will see my wild salad ingredients change over the coming months. If you want to know more about a specific plant, let me know, and I'll write posts about that specific plant -- like this one on English Daisies.
Tips for Making A Great Wild Salad
When I'm picking, I make a real effort to Pick Clean and Pick Organized. It's so much easier in the kitchen to see if I've gotten parts of any other plants that I don't want to eat. And to see any plant parts that aren't good quality.
Then I mix all the plants together and wash them well! Late winter and early spring wild plants can have a lot of grit and mud. Because there's more bare ground to splash up on the low-growing plants. That's OK -- I just soak and swish them in a big bowl. And then pat dry with a towel.
I think weed salads taste best when the plants are chopped up really fine. It mixes all the flavors - and keeps the texture, hairiness, or strong flavors of some plants from being noticeable. I don't put much effort into balancing flavors. I just pick a mix and chop fine. I've never had a bad weed salad this way. Every one has been delicious!
Wild Spring Salads Are Full of Life!
Wild salads in the early spring are tender! Even without knowing the nutrition details of each wild plant, it's clear that they are healthy. Most wild greens have even more nutrients than garden vegetables. I always feel better when I eat these salads.
I tossed my chopped greens with an olive oil-balsamic vinegar mix - and homemade raisins from my homegrown green seedless grapes. I keep some of the flowers to put on top. I put more raisins on top -- and pieces of Coconut-Herb-Black Pepper Chao. That's a vegan fake cheese that's delicious!
The Chao cheese is made by the Field Roast Grain Meat Co. in Seattle, Washington. The "Chao" part is a fermented Chao tofu. It has a mild coconut flavor with the spark of black peppercorns. Very good! Even people that like regular cheese like this vegan Chao cheese!
This salad was delicious with this smooth 8.21 Lunar Lager, made just for last summer's Total Solar Eclipse by a local brewery. I decided to enjoy it in celebration of the recent Super Blue Blood Moon's lunar eclipse. If you like beer, here's my review, complete with solar and lunar eclipse pictures. And here are posts about my canoe trip to see the eclipse - part 1. part 2.
I appreciate being able to grow or find so much of my food. Are you harvesting any plants from your garden or growing wild this time of year? Would you eat my wild spring salad?
Plant List - And Foraging Quiz Answers
- Nipplewort - Lapsana communis - tender young leaves
- Hedge mustard – Sisymbrium officinale - young leaves
- Elephant garlic - Allium ampeloprasum - young leaves
- Field mustard – Brassica rapa – flowerbuds and tender leaves
- English daisy – Bellis perennis – leaves and flowers
- Bittercress - Cardamine hirsuta - tender leaves, stems, and flowerheads
- Spearmint - Mentha spicata - leaves
- Curly Dock – Rumex crispus – young leaves
- Dandelion – Taraxacum officinale – leaves and flowers
- Wild arugula - Diplotaxis tenuifolia - leaves
- Narrowleaf plantain - Plantago lanceolata - tender young leaves
- Cats ear - Hypochaeris radicata - young leaves
- Wild chives - Allium vineale - young leaves
- Chickweed - Stellaria media - leaves, stems, flowers
- Purple deadnettle - Lamium purpureum - leaves, stems, flowerheads before seeds
- Cleavers - Galium aparine - tender leaves and stems
Which ones did you get right? Which ones caused trouble? I want to help you enjoy the bounty of all the incredible wild plants around us!
Here are some of my other Wild Salad posts: Free Hotel Salad - Wild Style! // Another Free Hotel Salad - Wild Style! // Wild, Wild Salad - 19 wild plants // Grilled Beets Wild Style with Spruce Tree Balsamic Vinegar, Mallow "Cheesewheels", and Strong Greens // Savory Pumpkin Custard on a Bed of Baby Wild Greens with Black Nightshade and Spruce Tree Dressing // Salads from Weeds, Tree Leaves, Flowers, and Seeds // Wild Homestead Extravaganza Salad - 25 wild plants and Shaggy Parasol mushrooms // Paleo Winter Weed Salad - 15 wild plants // Another Paleo Winter Weed Salad - 15 wild plants // Wild Weed Salad - 16 wild plants //
I eat a lot of wild plants and show you how, because I believe that we can all have lives that are richer, more secure, more grounded, and more interesting by getting to know the plants and the land around us – in our yards, our parks, and our wild places.
If you found this post interesting or helpful, I'd appreciate your upvote! Happy healthy eating! And happy foraging!
Haphazard Homestead
foraging, gardening, nature, simple living close to the land
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