Sauteed Hogweed Leaf Stalks With Nettles & Wild Garlic

I no longer recommend this plant be served to the public.

This plant is not for beginners. Never eat raw. Always wear gloves when gathering.

Please read these important Safety Notes.

The young hogweed leaf stalks and nettle tips are at their peak at the moment with regards the freshest, youngest greens.

Hogweed is a plant that I have a lot of respect for, it is one of the true gourmet wild edibles, and it is well worth spending the time learning how to identify hogweed.

WARNING: Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) is part of the Carrot family and as such you must be 500% certain that you have identified this plant correctly. You must also gather it with gloves on as the sap can burn you. This is completely destroyed by cooking.

Do NOT eat this plant raw! Definitely not a plant for novice foragers to start playing around with. Giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum), is highly poisonous, and even brushing against it can give some people very serious burns.

Not everyone can eat this plant – some people experience severe reactions to it – You MUST conduct a safety tolerance test, before ever eating this plant. I don’t care what other foragers say. My advise comes from over 10 years of working with Hogweed.

Read my article: Foraging Safety Guidelines For Eating Wild Edible Plants.

In this recipe the delicate flavours of hogweed leaf stalks combine well with young nettle tips providing a wonderful tapas style side dish. In this recipe I am not going to give you quantities.

I teach foraging using your senses, and as such the next shift is to start cooking with your senses, rather than relying on linear-mind quantities. If you look at old fashioned recipe books, ingredients were listed but rarely the quantities.

So go on, try this recipe and let me know how the recipe turned out for you.

Hogweed Recipe Ingredients

  • young hogweed leaf stalks (remove the leaves and use them for another dish)
  • young nettle tips
  • wild garlic
  • coconut oil
  • red chilli
  • cracked black pepper
  • sea salt

Hogweed Recipe Instructions

  1. Boil the hogweed stems and nettle tips for 5 minutes. Drain.
  2. Put a small amount of coconut butter in a frying pan along with the red chilli and sauté the hogweed and nettles with the wild garlic.
  3. Towards the end of cooking, tear up the Parma ham into pieces add to the wild greens, then quickly cook until done.
  4. Serve with bread as a snack or as a vegetable side dish

Further reading: Traditional and Modern Use of Stinging Nettle