Spring Greens & A Recipe for Stinging Nettle Pesto

When you think of Spring, what associations come to mind for you?

For me, Spring is my favorite season - for many reasons.

Spring is the emergence after a long, cold winter. It is resilience, it is hope.

Spring is fresh rain that brings out the most beautiful shades of green and brown.

Spring is the flowing of sap which offers us the opportunity for the sweetness of Maple Syrup.

Spring is the reemergence of so many dear plant friends, and it is a tender “hello” after a season apart.

Spring is so many things, these are just a few that stand out to me personally. 

Through the lens of Chinese Medicine, Spring has its own collection of associations:

• Green, the color

• Liver and Gallbladder

• Sour taste

Spring, through the lens of Chinese Medicine, is the perfect season for tending to our Liver (and Gallbladder) - the organ that supports digestion, filters our blood, and processes/ detoxifies harmful and/or unneeded chemicals.

There is in fact something to the idea of Spring cleaning - our spaces and our bodies!

One way that we can support our liver and its natural desire to process and detox is to consume more leafy greens.

How perfect that nature provides quite the array of leafy greens for us to forage and add to our diets in the Spring 🌱

• Virginia Waterleaf

• Garlic Mustard

• Dandelion

• Chickweed

• Cleavers

• Purple Dead Nettle

• And, of course… Stinging Nettle!

If you’re curious to see and identify some of these forage-able Spring greens in person and learn more about some of the other plants that emerge in the Spring, I will be leading the first plant walk of the season on May 5th at 6:00pm in Eagle Lake, MN!

If you’re confident with the identification of Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica), you may find yourself heading out to harvest some of their tender tops to make the recipe I’ll be sharing with you today…

Stinging Nettle Pesto

• 4 cups Fresh, Tender Nettle Tops, roughly chopped

• ⅔ - 1 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (start with ⅔ c and add more if needed/desired)

• 1 cup Nuts or Seeds, your choice (I really enjoy walnuts in my pesto but plan to try sesame seed this year)

• ½ cup Romano / Parmesan Cheese, shredded

• 4-6 Garlic Cloves, to taste

1. Add all ingredients into a food processor and blend until creamy, stir to ensure all Nettles incorporate.

2. ENJOY!

Note:

• Pesto freezes really well. Feel free to make extra and toss into the freezer for later in the season!

• This recipe can be altered to be made with any other Spring green listed above (with the exception of Cleavers). Have fun with it!

Ways to Enjoy Nettle Pesto:

• Off a spoon

• Tossed into pasta

• Mixed with potatoes (think spring potato salad!)

• Used as the sauce for pizza

• On crackers, toast, or a sandwich

• Added to eggs

If you’ve never consumed fresh Nettles, you might be alarmed by this recipe…

“Won’t they sting my mouth?!”

A reasonable question given the way they generously sting when we harvest or brush up against them.

I can reassure you that they will not sting your mouth once they are blended up.

The blending process completely neutralizes the compounds found in the stinging hairs (aka: trichomes) on the Nettle stems and leaves. Cooking will also neutralize the “sting” and drying nettles will neutralize the great majority of the “sting”.

So, with that said, eat all the cooked Nettles and all the Nettle Pesto you may desire!

Your liver will be grateful, plus you’ll get a boost of chlorophyll, antioxidants, and a slew of macro and micro nutrients (such as iron, selenium, zing, magnesium, calcium, and potassium, to name a few)!

Good harvesting practice is to harvest just above a leaf node. This allows the plant to continue growing!

One last note on Nettles before you head out to harvest* some for the Stinging Nettle Pesto 😉, if you find yourself uncomfortable with nettle stings, do yourself a favor and take a couple/few nettle leaves, roll them in your fingers until they get juicy, then apply the juiciness over the sting. You’ll feel the relief. The juice of the Nettle holds the very antidote to the compounds that are found in the stinging hairs. How cool is nature!?!

*If you are hesitant about the sting or you know you don’t do well with them, please wear gloves when harvesting Nettles.

If you end up trying this recipe, I’d love to hear about your experience and what nut/seed you tried!

Happy Spring Green Foraging!

Be well,

~ Kara