Wild Salad: A Spring Delicacy!
Originally posted Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Updated May 2025
Making wild salad can easily become a cherished spring ritual. It’s relaxing and fun, and I’d say that collecting your dinner is a medicinal act in itself, not to mention the benefits of eating it! I like to grab a big basket and lay out my harvest, mostly for the aesthetic value, but a paper or cloth bag will do just fine. Enjoy the quiet, meditative act of harvesting, and the special opportunity to observe the plant’s features, characteristics, and habitat of choice. The trick to making a palatable wild salad is to collect these plants when they are young, in the spring. As the days get warmer and the plants get older and begin to put more of their energy into flowering, many of these species become too bitter or astringent for most palates. Hence, they are a delicacy to be enjoyed each spring!
And while of course many wild foods are in season from spring through fall, there's something about the exuberance of the spring and the undeniable vitality of the plants right now that makes the spring my favorite season to imbibe in wild foods. And when we make dishes with raw wild greens we've foraged or even picked from our gardens or bought at local farmers markets, we're infusing our microbiome with our bioregional, wild microbial "terroir” present on the leaf surface of these plants. The gut microbiome is diverse microbial array that lives in our digestive system and has a hand in regulating mood, mental health, digestion, nutrient absorption, immunity…and the research just keeps growing.
When we eat raw or fermented wild foods, we’re adding that diversity and local microbial array to our own microbiome, helping to harmonize us with the local landscape and heal gut issues and even gut dysbiosis. Basically, we're about talking *wild* probiotics and- believe it or not- many fancy and expensive probiotics are originally cultured from the wild. This is powerful food as medicine!
Wild Salad
Ingredients:
Some recipes call for 1/2 salad greens and 1/2 wild greens. As the growing season progresses, this can be nice since wild greens will get more bitter and tough the older they get, but in the spring the wild greens tend to be tender and delicious. It’s up to you if you’d like to cut them with store bought greens but, personally, in the spring I go all wild!
For the wild part here’s what I like to use, in any combination:
Apple + Crab Apple leaves + flowers (Malva syvestris, Malva spp)
Bee Balm young tops (Monarda didyma)
Beech leaf (Fagus grandifolia)
Birch leaves + catkins (Betula spp)
Blackberry + Raspberry + Brambles leaves (Rubus spp)
Chickweed herb (Stellaria media)
Chicory leaf (Cichorium intybus)
Clover leaf (Trifolium pratense, T. repens)
Cinquefoil leaf + flower (Potentilla simplex)
Day Lily young shoots (Hemerocallis spp.)
Dandelion leaf + flower (Taraxacum officinalis)
Field aka Crow Garlic leaf + bulb (Allium vineale)
Henbit lvs, flowers + tender stems (Lamium amplexicaule)
Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) + Pennsylvania bittercress lvs + tender stems (Cardamine pensylvanica)
Oxeye Daisy leaf (Leucanthemum vulgare)
Garlic Mustard leaf + flowering tops (Allium petiolata)
Ground Ivy flowering tops or leaves (Glechoma hederacea)
Lady’s Mantle leaf (Alchemilla vulgaris)
Linden + Basswood Leaves (Tilia spp)
Plantain leaf (Plantago lanceolata, P. major, P. rugelii)
Purple Dead Nettles lvs, flowers + tender stems (Lamium purpureum)
Mugwort young tops (Artemesia vulgaris)
Sheep Sorrel leaf (Rumex acetosella)
Shepherd’s Purse leaves + tender stems (Capsella bursa-pastoris)
Violet leaf + flowers (Viola sp.)
Wild Strawberry leaf + flower (Fragraria vesca)
Wild Rose leaves (Rosa multiflora)
Wild Carrot leaf (Daucus carota)
Yarrow leaf (Achillea millefolium)
Yellow Dock leaf (Rumex crispus, R. obtusifolius)
Mix all together, add in your favorite dressing (and see my fave recipe below), and enjoy!
A note on harvesting:
It’s easy to take advantage of the wide distribution of many of these edible plants. Chances are, you’ve got some growing within walking distance of your home, even if you’re in the city! It is of course important to consider a few guidelines anytime you’re doing any foraging. First, stay away from roads! I try to be at least 25 feet away and do my best to avoid gathering from roadsides at all for obvious reasons. Other areas to stay away from are along railroad tracks, areas often used for dog walking, and areas where you suspect the soil may be contaminated.
So, where to harvest? Local organic farms and CSAs are a great place to start- they will be psyched that you want to eat their weeds! The same goes for any gardeners you know who use organic methods…they will be happy you want to dig up their dandelion. Many of these plants like recently disturbed areas and edges and you’re more likely to find them co-habitating with humans rather than deep in the forest (which is potent food for thought when you think about it). Also, searching for and finding favorite patches of wild edibles is part of the mystique of foraging…so enjoy the hunt!
Lastly, be sure you know what you are harvesting! Try to attend local herb and edible plant walks in your area and get to know your field guide. Peterson’s makes a nice Edible Plant guide and Sam Thayer’s books are wonderful too. And be sure you aren’t harvesting anything threatened or at-risk. United Plant Savers is a great resource as well as your state endangered species list.
Uses:
In addition to being delicious and incredibly good for you (many of these species are off the charts in vitamins and trace mineral content), as well as supporting gut health and adding diversity to your gut microbiome, wild salad is gently detoxifying, as many of these herbs are classified as liver tonics and/or alteratives, also known as blood purifiers.
I consider wild salad to be a spring tonic. The bitter and sour flavors stimulate our digestion and help the liver work optimally to clear the blood of toxins and other unwanted substances. On a side-note, the liver and gallbladder also happen to be associated with spring in Traditional Chinese Medicine, definitely not a coincidence! And alteratives, or blood purifiers, help the body break down and remove metabolic waste, both through our digestive system and urinary system, and are often considered to be all-around “tonics” that promote vitality and good health, so eat up!
Favorite Wild Salad Dressing
½ c olive oil
½ c Garlic Mustard oxymel
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp tamari
½ tsp sea salt
NOTE: You can also use a combo of 75% herbal vinegar (such as Nettles, Dandelion, Chickweed or Cleavers) and 25% honey for this portion if you don’t have an oxymel
Enjoy all!
