Dandelions are quickly becoming one of my favorite wild foods. They’re hardly new or exotic—in fact, most people are familiar with their edibility on some level. Recently the greens have even become regularly available in my local grocery’s produce section, so I’ve been devouring those with gusto since mid-winter.
You want to get the firmest buds way down in the center of the plant, before they’ve developed a stem or many petals inside.
But as with anything, in-season and hand-plucked is always best! Some people spend an awful lot of time trying to eliminate these “weeds” from their lawns, but you better believe I was out there with a knife and a basket as soon as I saw this spring’s first leaves emerging.
If you caught my Instagram stories last weekend, you saw me crawling through my yard like a ruminant, hunting for the unopened flower buds to pickle into capers. This is the first year I’ve done that, and I had no idea how many delectable goobers were down there in the center of the plant!
Any standard pickle solution will do, but what I used for my Dandelion Bud Capers was a brine made from 2/3 cup vinegar, 1/3 cup water, 2 teaspoons salt, and a handful of peppercorns and juniper berries. I just did a quick fridge pickle, but if I get more industrious I might even use my hot water bath canner to store some for later in the year. After 24 hours in the fridge, these little buggers provided the perfect acidic crunch for my dish.
For the Sauteed Dandelion Greens, I fried up a good amount of chopped bacon and then removed it when crispy. Using the bacon fat, I softened some onions and then garlic, and threw in a large amount of rinsed greens to the hot pot. While the greens cooked down (1-2 minutes max!), I added some balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. (Ahem: You’ll notice I’m not giving you any quantities here; I figure if you’re adventurous enough of a cook to experiment with wild food then you can figure out how to balance flavors to your liking.) And then, naturally, I dumped the bacon bits back in.
What else can we do with greens? Dandelion Pesto, OF COURSE. Greens, nuts, grated Parmesan, olive oil, garlic, lemon, salt and pepper. I like my pesto a little chunky, so only used a few brief pulses in my food processor before it was ready to go.
There are so many things I want to try with dandelions that it’s hard to keep track—dandelion jelly, dandelion wine, dandelion root tea and “coffee”—but my dish here needed a little crunch so I opted for Fried Dandelion Flower Fritters. Now, I’m not going to promise you that you’ll actually be able to taste the “dandelion-ness” in these, because as with all fried things you mostly taste the breading. So, make it a good one. I dipped each flower in egg, and then a combination of cornmeal, flour, garlic powder, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper. Fried ‘em to crispy perfection in a little vegetable oil. SO CRUNCHY. SO GOOD.
Tips for foraging flowers: 1) Pick them on a sunny day in the late morning/early afternoon after the dew has evaporated. 2) Let them “rest” inside for at least 10 minutes to allow any tiny creepy-crawlies to yeet out of there. 3) Trim as much of the green stem off the back as possible, while still keeping the heads together.
That “five ways” I mentioned? Yeah, #5 is just some straight-up rinsed and Raw Dandelion Greens. Some people stop eating them after spring time because they definitely get more bitter with heat. But especially as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to love and even crave bitter flavors. Partially because they make my mouth happy, and partially because my brain knows that bitter often packs a powerful nutritional and even medicinal punch.
So that was my Sunday lunch: Sauteed Dandelion Greens topped with a sprinkle of Dandelion Bud Capers and a few Fried Dandelion Flower Fritters. Served alongside a small salad of Raw Dandelion Greens, cornbread, Dandelion Pesto, and a few fresh flowers. Accompanied by my favorite new bitter cocktail: the classic Negroni. (What? It was after noon.)
When I cook with wild food, the result is always “Cool! I just ate a wild thing.” But sometimes the flavor is sometimes meh or indistinguishable from a plant’s cultivated cousin. But this dish? OOH BABY. I’m tellin’ ya. Go get you some while the gettin’s good!
