Eating stinging nettles

I grew up in Ukraine and stinging nettle soups were a popular part of our diet in the summers. It is delicious and I definitely don’t agree that it is bland. But I suspect a big part of it is what else you add to it. My suggestion is to look up “суп с крапивой” and use your favorite method of translating it to your language of choice to look at the variety of recipes.

Stinging nettles taste good. They have a long history of human consumption. They're in a family of plants (Urticaceae) containing no other common food crops, so they increase variety of diet, which to me seems like a good idea. The main drawback is the bad texture. The stinging hairs have an unpleasant furry texture even after you cook them (which stops them from stinging but does not remove them). This is why they're traditionally served blended or finely chopped in soups. If somebody could breed a version without the stinging hairs (not merely inactivating them) I think they would make a good commercial crop.

Oh yeah my polish grandmother (100 and still kicking!) cooked some. Tastes like spinach and was great.

Fun story (semi related) she visited us in the US in 2015 and my sister served her kale. She amusingly said: “I haven’t had this since ww2” apparently when food was scarce they grew kale which was easy to grow in Poland and packed with nutrients

When I read "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" when I was about 18, there is a mention of how in the summer they would get nettles in their gruel at the prison camp. Midwestern American me had no idea of the nutritive value of nettles and thought this was another layer of cruelty that the Soviet gulag heaped on its inmates. I had only encountered nettles on hikes in the woods, and held them in the same category as poison ivy.

Years later, dating the Finnish woman who is now my wife, I learned how to gather nettles, about nettle soup, and even that eating nettles can de-sensitize you to seasonal allergies. I had completely misinterpreted that part of Solzhenitsyn's writing, and that his point was that at least when the nettles were growing the gruel had some additional nutrition (like vitamin c) in it.

A lot of knowledge like this has been lost in suburban America.

>People think that when you become vegan you have to give up lots of food. It’s true that I stopped eating animals but the number of different species I eat has grown considerably. This is because meat-eaters tend to eat the same few species of animals over and over again – pigs, cows, chickens. Whereas there are some 20,000 species of edible plants in the world.

I was vegetarian for 10 years until around COVID. I often want to go back to vegetarianism, not for ethical or health reasons, just for the sheer diversity of what I ate and the fun of cooking with limitations.

Apparently some of the nettle family have edible berries.

Jared Rydelek's channel is about eating exotic fruits. It's a bit long winded but pretty neat to see the unusual fruits from around the world.

A recent video has him eating a berry from the Gympie gympie/stinging tree/Dendrocnide moroides from the nettle family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aEio_yDEc8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrocnide_moroides

In my childhood in Greece, stinging nettle pie (τσουκνιδόπιτα), a dish much like spinach pie, was a traditional recipe often prepared by grandmothers. Today, younger generations may not even recognize stinging nettle, though it once held a valued place in our culinary heritage.

I've tried various stinging nettle dishes. For me, they fall into the long list of things that are technically edible, but I see no reason why one would eat them today aside from cultural history/connection/tradition reasons. Every way I've tried them, they basically just taste like plant.

If you like it, great, but I think the value to those who don't have some pre-existing reason to be interested in the dish to be overstated. Similar plants in the category are miner's lettuce and dandelion greens.

If one has a great abundance of it, and one likes to spend time preparing ones own food, or if the idea of wild gathered plants has special appeal, then nettles (etc.) can indeed take the place (ish) of things like lettuce and spinach, but don't expect some dramatically unique experience.

I've had them. They're fine. But this is overselling the variety angle. The meat eater equivalence of forage like this would be game animals. In my experience and extrapolating, the taste difference between game and farm animals is generally greater than among the green vegetables.

Blanched as a pizza topping is one of the ways we like to eat them.

I'd disagree that they're bland. Are they more towards the bland end of the scale than mustard greens or something, sure, but they're definitely not tasteless.

For those reading this and wanting to pick nettle, it is important to pick young leaves, and not from plants that are in flower.

Once the leaves are older, there are all sorts of oxalates, and you should really avoid them if you are sensitive to kidney stones.

These plants also absorb pollution very effectively, so keep in mind where you pick them from.

Stinging nettles are often touted as free abundant superfood, but the truth is it is rather bland and boring. Yes, edible, but you would be better of grabbing some established greens from a local grocery store.

From the comments, it looks like eating stinging nettles is quite common throughout Europe. It is definitely well-known in Denmark, and used in a number of recipes. You can buy dried and chopped stinging nettles, but they are best when you pick them fresh. The classic Danish recipe is "brændenældesuppe" (stinging nettle soup). I dont think it is as common as it used to be, as our food culture has been so americanized.

> This is because meat-eaters tend to eat the same few species of animals over and over again – pigs, cows, chickens.

Tangential, but this is one of the things I like about eating fish. There are so many species you can eat, some of which you can only find in certain regions or have to catch yourself. My list of aquatic animals I've eaten has 47 entries on it and I've surely missed some because it's often hard to tell exactly what species you're getting at a restaurant. I'm always excited to add more to the list.

Some less common ones I've had are sickle pomfret ("monchong") and moonfish ("opah") from a fish market in Hawaii, cobia from a fishing trip in Florida, and many perch and bluegill that I've caught myself.

In the Netherlands it's quite common to eat stinging nettle cheese. It's quite tasty. Fenugreek is another crowd favourite.

Relatively common in Finland to use young nettles like you’d use spinach in hot dishes (soup, blanched, pancakes).

There's a restaurant in Sarajevo which specializes in this stuff, called The Singing Nettle. Recommended.

In my country soups made from stinging nettles have been eaten most likely for thousands of years. It tastes a lot like spinach and is full of vitamin C and such.

This is a staple food in Romania during spring. With or without rice. Great with fried eggs.

> "nutritious source of iron, calcium, potassium, and silica"

Hold up, is silica (SiO₂) supposed to be a nutrient? That's a striking sentence.

In Germany, cheese with stinging nettle is a thing and I remember eating it a few times as a child (Brennnesselkäse), typically Gouda-like types.

In the spring I get nettles and wild garlic and a bit later elderflower. Summer is berries (including elderberries), plums, wild cherries (not as good as they sound). Fall is wild mushrooms and sloe and monkey butt fruit and persimmons, apple, pear, etc. Winter is drinking elderflower vodka and sloe gin and eating frozen and dried stuff from the rest of the year. I'm sure I'm forgetting things.

There is also ‘nettle beer’, dunno if my batch failed but it was undrinkable

I first tried nettle soup in Bulgaria. So delicious. FYI you can replace spinach with nettle in almost any recipe and vise versa.

Random fact:

You only get stung by nettles around the edge of their leaves. You can touch the middle of the leaf and you won't get stung.

I can testify that steamed stingy nettles with gomasio (toasted sesame seeds and salt) is very delicious.

100% thought this would be about eating jellyfish (which I'm completely on board with because they've stung me upwards of a dozen times and that old Klingon proverb that says that revenge, much like jellyfish, is a dish best served cold).

Apropos of stinging plants though both of my parents are supposedly very allergic to poison ivy. I maintained an immunity to it until I was around 27-28 when it began to affect me very slightly. Now if I graze it I can get away without ill effects merely by washing the urushiol off with dish soap within a half hour or so. I've heard of gardeners and outdoorspeople eating it in small quantities to maintain their resistance to it. While I'm not particularly keen to try this there is something poetic about it.

I had ortie pasta (nettle in French) once when I lived in France. Then I started seeing ortie products all over, usually in a fancy bio corner in supermarkets. I suppose it is common in Europe, reading other comments?

It can help improve Testosterone processing. If you are showing male pattern hair thinning try a Stinging Nettle Extract, and get a medical workup.

Animal research reveals that this powerful plant may prevent the conversion of testosterone into dihydrotestosterone — a more powerful form of testosterone (12Trusted Source).

Stopping this conversion can help reduce prostate size.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/stinging-nettle#TOC_TIT...

Nettles have a lot of uses. Back in the day my grandfather's neighbour would, whenever he was getting sick, take off all his clothes and roll around in the nettles. I've got no idea why - he kept doing it so it must've done something for him. It could've been an old folk remedy, but I can imagine the pain would distract you from the sickness.

They were common in the mountains of Southern California. In Scouts, we would eat them, make twine, and even use them for toilet paper :D

Nettle soup is one of the things I miss most about living in Sweden. Also, I'm surprised to hear that silica is a nutrient!?

Milarepa's skin and hair supposedly turned green from living on nettles for a while while meditating in retreat.

https://buddhaweekly.com/milarepa-explains-happiness-story-n...

Just make sure not to pick them from fertilized ground (like garden beds) as they may have high levels of nitrites (?).

Pick them from wild areas

I don't know about going vegetarian but they are probably the best tasting leaf vegetable.

I prefer them raw.

The stalks also produce fiber that is long and strong - almost as good as flax/linen.

The plant is very easy to grow because it spreads both by rhizomes and by seed although that means you have to be on top of it in order to control its spread.

Stinging nettles are quite popular in Romania. We make a puree and we eat them with eggs and polenta.

I grow stinging nettles. I used to just steam them for 10 or so minutes. Then they're a normal green. Can mix with eggs, eat plain on the side, add some salt.

Pretty good stuff.

If you do grow them, make sure you situate them in a corner of the yard--no fun to get stung.

I eat them fairly often, but tend to get "nettle fatigue" quite early on due to their strong fishy smell - ammonia-like. Anyone got a recipe / way of getting past it, or masking it efficiently?

I also use it for tea regularly in Spring/Summer. Once they're seeding I use the seeds for tea. If I have enough time to collect them I'll store the seeds for a garnish over winter.

The most appealing vegetable foraging to me has been Japanese these fiddle-leaf looking things, also these tree nubs that is like asparagus and a huge strawberry leaf that gets deep fried

My grandma used to make stinging nettle soup a lot (I think a Swedish thing) - it tasted great, mostly like spinach and vegetable stock! Always feel nostalgic whenever I see it anywhere.

We used to have nettle salad as a kid. IIRC if you cut them fine enough, they stop stinging or something like that. Can’t quite remember, so maybe DYOR before you make a salad ;)

I love making nettle tea over a campfire. Drink the tea, then eat the nettles. It tastes very nourishing. Bagged nettle tea doesn’t come close. (Northeastern USA.)

Not to alarm anyone; SN was used to discipline kids who misbehaved while growing up

dip the the plant in water and that whip the back kids with it. yeah, horrible i know.

My mom likes stinging nettle soup, she used to make it occasionally when I was a child. I didn’t like it back then, no idea if I would like it now.

Milarepa (famous Indian saint) lived on nettle soup for a while (while living in a cave and such). Turned him green. Neighbors were freaked out.

My neighbor uses the stinging nettles out of my yard to make an amazing risotto. Every spring there’s a part of my yard that gets covered with them.

You can also make nettle tea. It tastes kinda earthy and has a nice smell. You can add other things to it, like mint or raspberry leaves.

My mom made soup from them when I grew up. They are not particularly special taste-wise but I can believe they have vitamins, like every green.

The key is to add lots of onions and garlic and some butter to give it base flavor. The nettles give off great colour and a more subtle flavor and of course add more nutrients.

The real key though is stinging nettles just simply grow like crazy in your backyard (at least in Ireland) so it's a two birds with the one stone kind of deal, you're gardening as well as cooking. There is also the 'badass' feeling of eating something that previously was dangerous. The heat will denature any stingers in the soup.

You ate it in a hearty soup, likely made on pork bone broth, with a boiled egg, and sour cream added. It makes a lot of difference for culinary experience :) The other commenter probably just tried to add it to some rice, or as a "side green". On itself nettle is more or less like spinach, but with weaker taste

I remember it as borsch with nettle. Nettle was one of the first green things in the spring, just after snow melted. Nettle borsch was cooked just like the regular one but with nettle instead of cabbage.

Thank you for the correct google term to plug in! I do this all the time in Chinese, but have no idea where to start with other languages I don't speak.

I'm also from around there. Another very effective flavor enhancer for pretty much any soup or stew or chowder is cold smoked pork. Ribs, pancetta, sausages...

It's also worth to mention that early spring sprouts do not sting at all. Cold "борщ" from them is delicious.

I dunno man. A soup with “crap-ivoi”. Sounds sketchy.

My mom made soup from them when I grew up. They are not particularly special taste-wise but I can believe they have vitamins, like every green.

A lot of knowledge like this has been lost in suburban America.

In the 1930s American lawn care guides would tout volunteer herbs as a benefit of lawns. Today we call them "weeds" and spend a crazy amount of effort, money, and chemicals into eradicating them

If we had always had this attitude towards "weeds", we wouldn't have turned the weedy Brassica oleracea into cabbage, broccoli, kale, collard greens, etc.

When I was growing up in eastern Europe in 80s, older folks in rural areas with various joint ailments would daily gather stinging nettles with gloves and then literally whip themselves on the affected places.

Maybe it was just natural suppressant of pain or anti-inflammatory remedy, certainly no expectation to fix joints themselves (that even current medicine often can't fix) but nobody normal would go through such experience daily if there would be results.

fwiw a lot of us are trying to bring that knowledge back. I'm currently in the process of replacing as much of my grass as possible with creeping thyme, because it's nice underfoot, smells good and doesn't need mowed.

> and even that eating nettles can de-sensitize you to seasonal allergies.

Is there any research backing up this folk remedy? Asking for a partner and multiple family members with severe seasonal allergies