One of the most exciting things about late winter is that stinging nettles start to poke their heads up above the Earth. By early Spring, we harvest them regularly to dry for winter and to make delicious meals.
The other day I taught a daylong class on nettles at Wilderness Awareness School. Believe it or not, there is enough material.
Nettles are among the most nutritious of wild foods. When it is cooked, the sting disappears, leaving behind a delectable herb packed with more vitamins and minerals than you can imagine. It is truly a super-food and its healthful qualities are the ultimate medicine.
Now, instead of listing a recipe with exact amounts of this or that, I am going to approach this nettle soup recipe a little differently. This way you will remember it, and will not have to reference this page when you are ready to make your soup.
Basically, start as you would many soup recipes… well, I suppose that’s starting how I would make a soup, which is to sauté some onion, garlic and chopped potato on the bottom of a soup pot. How much is up to you. How much onion and garlic do you like? Me? I like LOTS!
Then, I fill the pot half way with water, or water and stock (vegetable or chicken broth). Turn on the heat.
Once the water is simmering, I jam the pot FULL of nettles. You can chop them up a bit if you like. It's a bit easier to make this way. I continue to simmer the soup until the potatoes are soft.
Then, serve it up! Adding a little salt is nice as well.
You can do some variations on this as well. Put some in a blender, add some milk, and make crème of nettle soup. See! It’s easy.
I suppose my point is that nettles are a very versatile herb. In the Spring time, use it in any recipe that calls for something green. You can make nettle lasagna with your favorite spinach lasagna recipe or nettle pesto with any old basil pesto recipe. You can even nettle spanakopita! One of the easiest things is to steam some nettles, and serve them up with a little parmesian cheese.
Here are a couple photos from our class…
