The Home - Stinging Nettle Recipes

A remarkably nutritive plant grows in my yard: Stinging Nettle.

Imagine planting a patch of nettles and knowing you will have a good nutritious green vegetable for the rest of your days.  

Stinging nettle is a wild woman. She has stingers on her stems and the undersides of her leaves. But she also grows at the same time as dock. "Nettle in, dock out." If you get stung with nettle, grab a dock leaf, chew it slightly and place it on the sting for relief. That said, with gloves and scissors, I can fill a bag for days' worth of food in minutes.

While the internet screams about kale and other "super foods", wild foods outshine these. They are more nutrient dense than cultivated "super foods" and pest-resistant, making them easier to grow. Nettle is a perennial that will come back each spring to provide food and medicine year after year. 

Pick nettle to use fresh or dry. To harvest, snip off the tops, about 4-6 inches. 

USE FRESH

• soup/ stew
• pesto
• quiche/ omelets
• saute/ side dish
• add to pot pies/ casseroles
• pizza topping
• add to noodles/ pasta dough/ dumplings
• add to bread and rolls
• savory crepes or pancakes
• add to fruit leather
• bake into crisps
• cake

USE DRY

• infusions - multi-vitamin in a drink!
• powder to add to soups and stews
• use dry leaf in soups and stews

USE LEFTOVER FROM MAKING INFUSION

• dried nettle is used for making infusions, but once that has been strained off, this can be added to chicken and livestock feed, used to make pasta noodles, added to bread dough, sprinkled in soups to simmer. 

Nettle is a nutritional powerhouse, a natural multi-vitamin, amazingly rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals, especially the critical trace minerals: anti-cancer selenium, immune-enhancing sulphur, memory-enhancing zinc, diabetes-chasing chromium, and bone-building boron. One cup of cooked nettle greens contains more than 40% of the calcium you need for the day. It can be added to animal feed, dried, to boost their mineral intake.

A quart of nettle infusion contains more than 1000 milligrams of calcium, 15000 IU of Vitamin A, 760 milligrams of vitamin K, 10% protein, and lavish amounts of most B vitamins. Cooking nettle greens increases the vitamin A per serving because the longer it cooks, the more cell walls are broken down and the more Vitamin A is made available.

To tea or not to tea? Nettle tea does not have a largely pleasant flavor. However, the infusion strained and chilled tastes very nice. The infusion has much more nutritional content than the tea, but either way you make it, you will likely enjoy it cold rather than hot.

There are a surprising number of recipes for nettle online. Nettle has been a staple food for thousands of years. The oldest known recipe using nettles is from 8000 years ago, 6000 BCE, in Britain: Nettle Pudding. I'm adding it here for the interest level. I haven't tried it yet, but I plan to.

Pudding, in Britain, is a steamed dish made with flour, tied up in a cloth, and boiled into something like a large dumpling. It's likely the cloth this ancient pudding was was made in was also made from nettle stalk fiber which was very common. 

RECIPE: STONE AGE NETTLE PUDDING

Ingredients:

• handful of sorrel
• handful of dandelion
• handful of watercress
• 2 handfuls nettles
• some chives
• 1 cup barley flour
• 1 tsp salt

1. Chop the herbs finely and mix in the barley flour and salt. 
2. Add enough water to bind it together and place in the center of a linen or muslin cloth. 
3. Tie the cloth securely and add to a pot of simmering venison or wild boar (a pork joint will do just as well). 
4. Leave in the pot until the meat is cooked and serve with chunks of bread.

Many people on the internet have made this dish and nearly all amended it to ingredients that could be bought or gathered in their area. Wheat flour can be used to replace barley flour, and one woman used pearled barley instead of flour. Some folks could not find sorrel, plus what kind of sorrel is not specified (wood sorrel or garden/sheep sorrel), while another used common cress (creasies/ barbarea vulgaris) instead of watercress. I believe this would be a forgiving pudding whatever the combination.

How to eat nettles in the 21st century? Two people can eat for a week using pantry staples and a bag full of nettle. Make soup, quiche, savory crepes, pasta, pot pie, and pesto for an entire week of nutritious meals.

RECIPE: STINGING NETTLE SOUP - serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1/2 a paper grocery store bag of nettle tops and leaves (about 1 lb. or 400-500g)
• 1 large potato (about 1 lb.)
• 1 leek or onions or wild onions
• fresh thyme
• 4 cups water or stock
• butter
• heavy cream (optional)
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Blanch the nettles in boiling water for 2 minutes, then remove them and place in them in shock water (ice cold water) to stop the cooking. Drain and set aside.
2. In a large pot, melt some butter and saute the leeks/onions.
3. Add the potatoes, stirring to coat them with butter and let them cook a minute. 
4. Add the stock, thyme, and nettles and cook everything until the potatoes are quite soft, about 20 minutes. To get the most nutrition from the nettles, just keep simmering for an hour.
5. Add a little more butter, salt and pepper to taste, and mash smooth with a potato masher or blend. With a masher, there will be leaves in the soup; with a blender, the soup will become a lush liquid.
6. Serve hot in soup bowls and swirl with heavy cream if desired. 

RECIPE: NETTLE PANCAKES/CREPES - serves 1-2 

Ingredients:

• 2 oz. blanched nettles
• 3 TBSP milk
• 1/2 cup water (may need more)
• 1 egg
• olive oil
• 4 TBSP flour
• 1/2 TBSP sugar
• pinch of salt
• drop of vanilla extract (optional)

1. Blanch the nettles in boiling water for two minutes, then plunge into shock water (ice cold water) to stop the cooking.
2. Chop the nettles very fine or blend. Add milk, sugar, oil, egg, and salt. Blend or mix very well. 
3. Add flour one tablespoon at a time. Mix well.
4. Add water in small streams, stirring, until the batter is pouring consistency. 
5. Heat a fry pan. Add a touch of oil, warm the oil and spread it around the pan. Add enough batter to spread to a thin pancake. Cook for two minutes, then flip and cook another two minutes.
6. NOTE: Savory crepes can be made by eliminating the sugar and vanilla. 

Serve sweet nettle pancakes with fresh fruit, jam, honey, syrup, or any way you would serve a sweet breakfast or dessert. 

For savory pancakes, sprinkle mushrooms, onion, chard, and crumbled cheese on top of hot pancakes, or roll up strips of prosciutto, ham, cheese, thinly slices scallions, and other vegetables inside the pancakes for an elegant finger food.

RECIPE: NETTLE NOODLES - serves 8 people

Ingredients:

• 2 heaping cups flour
• about 1 cup blanched nettles (2-3 big "glove"-fuls fresh)
• pinch of salt (optional)

1. Blanch the nettle tops for two minutes in boiling water, then remove to shock water (ice cold water) to stop the cooking. 
2. Squeeze the water out well and blend or puree the nettles. You might need a touch of water to help blend them. 
3. Put the flour in a bowl and make a well in the center. 
4. Add the pureed nettles. Work it all together with your fingers until it's a rather shaggy dough. If it is too dry, add a few drops of water at a time until you get the consistency you want. Turn out to knead.
5. Knead 5 minutes.
6. Coat with olive oil and wrap in plastic wrap and let it sit an hour.
7. Roll out the dough by hand or in a pasta roller to a little less than 1/8 inch and cut the dough into noodle strips. 
8. Dust the strands with flour, swirl into a nest and place in a large bowl. Cover with a tea towel and refrigerate if you are not cooking it until later in the day. 
9. To cook, boil in lots of salty water until they float, and then for another minute or two.

One more soup recipe should be added here. This is an American 18th century colonial recipe and very simple to make. It could be the basis for a more complex soup, adding meat and other vegetables. Or it could save your life in a dire food emergency. This recipe does not call for blanching the nettles first because they will cook in the soup. This one comes from the Townsends' You Tube channel.

RECIPE: 18th CENTURY STINGING NETTLE SOUP

Ingredients:

• 1 to 1 1/2 quarts/litres water
• 3 medium mushrooms
• butter
• large bowlful of nettles
• salt and pepper to taste
• stale bread (could also substitute oats)
• mushroom ketchup (or any tasty sauce or flavoring - optional)

1. Boil water in a small soup pot.
2. In a small pan, saute chopped mushrooms in butter.
3. Add chopped fresh nettles to mushrooms and saute down. 
4. Add salt and pepper. Stir.
5. Add this mix to the boiling water and stir. 
6. Add chunks of slate bread.
7. Add some mushroom ketchup.
8. Simmer 10 minutes.

NOTE: Mushroom ketchup is somewhat specific to the time period as a common ingredient in cooking. I am adding the recipe here, because it was used as an ingredient in the soup, but any tasty sauce or seasoning could do to flavor your simple 18th century nettle soup.

RECIPE: MUSHROOM KETCHUP

Ingredients: 

• 2 lbs. brown mushrooms
• salt
• bay leaves
• 1 chopped onion
• zest of one lemon
• 1 TBSP finely grated horseradish
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• pinch cayenne
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup cider vinegar

1. Wipe the mushrooms off. Don't wash them. Chop them into small pieces and place them in a bowl.
2. Add a couple of teaspoons of salt and two bay leaves.
3. Mix this together well, cover with a tea towel and let sit about 10 minutes in order to draw out the moisture.
4. The mushrooms should be rather wet and reduced somewhat. transfer this into a wide bowl or milk pan to sit overnight.
5. Pour the now very mushy mushrooms into a pot. Add the onion, lemon zest, and grated horseradish.
6. Add the spices and cider vinegar.
7. Stir together and simmer 15 minutes.
8. Pour the ingredients from the pot through a cloth. Once it has cooled to touch, squeeze the ingredients through the cloth to capture all the liquids. 
9. Refrigerate the liquid.

What to do with the mushy ingredients? Dry them and use as a spice. The dried goods can also be ground up once dried.

There is also another very nice recipe for mushroom ketchup from the Forager Chef along with a discussion about its uses and flavors.

Drying nettles

Nettles can be used any way that spinach or kale can, but it is more nutritious and perennial in the garden. Even in a situation where a food processor or blender may not be available, cooked nettles can be mashed in a mortar and pestle or chopped incredibly fine. Such a versatile food should not be overlooked on a homestead where food security and healthful nutrition are key goals.