- The Naturalist
- Posts
- Dandelion
Dandelion Flowers
As we get farther into spring, I want to explore more abundant food sources. Today we’re talking about the humble dandelion which we often take for granted!
Let’s start with a plant profile.
Plant Profile:
Scientific Name: Taraxacum sp.
Preferred Habitat: Open meadows and grassy fields, by sidewalks, on the edges of forests, sunny spots.
Edible Parts: All parts of the dandelion are edible from root to flower!
Distribution: Everywhere in North America
Taraxacum officinale range map.
Harvest Season: Spring is best for greens, but anytime spring through fall is good to harvest dandelions.
Key Identifiers: Deeply lobed leaves with a cut-tooth shape, tall straw-like stalks, and bright yellow fuzzy-looking flowers in the late spring and summer.
Toxic Look-Alikes: Dandelions have a few close look-alikes, but none are toxic whatsoever, and all can be used medicinally. Two come to mind: Cat’s ear (Hypochaeris radicata) which looks the most like a dandelion, and Sow thistle (Sonchus spp.). Neither of these plants have hollow stems, Cat’s ear has hairy leaves and branching stems, and Sow thistle has multiple flowers and leaves up the entire stalk.
This makes dandelion an awesome plant to forage for beginners!
Nutrition: (1 cup raw greens)
Calories: 25
Fat: 0.4g
Sodium: 42mg
Carbohydrates: 5.1g
Fiber: 1.9g
Sugars: 0.4g
Protein: 1.5g
Vitamin K: 428.1mcg
Iron: 1.7mg
Vitamin A: 279.4mcg
A dandelion flower
Health Benefits
As if those nutrition facts weren’t enough, dandelion has been proven to benefit gut health, fight inflammation, and may aid in blood sugar management by improving your body’s ability to produce and absorb insulin.
On top of that dandelion can reduce cholesterol levels, strengthen the liver, and may even fight prostate, stomach, liver, and colon cancers!
This is a nutritional powerhouse you really want to take advantage of.
Dandelion leaf closeup
Uses
Dandelion can be prepared many different ways.
Greens
The greens can be made into pesto, added to soup, thrown in stir fry, eaten in salads, or really used any way you’d use spinach or a similar leafy green.
Flowers
The flowers have a softer and sweeter flavor. Because of this they are often used for jelly (which tastes how I imagine sunlight would if you could taste it) teas, baked into pastries, meads, teas, vinegars, salves, fritters, and many more food items!
Roots
The roots have one of the more interesting uses in my opinion: coffee substitutes.
Over the last several years coffee substitutes have been on the rise. This is due to people getting off of caffeine addictions or trying to lower the acidity in their diets. One of the few major ingredients you’ll notice in these coffee substitutes is dandelion root!
Dandelion root and chicory root are often roasted and blended together to form a good base for coffee alternatives. After the roasting you grind it and brew it like you would coffee!
If you would like to learn how to do this yourself, I will refer you to this article from Practical Self Reliance (another amazing resource for the things I talk about!)
Dandelions in seed (courtesy of my sister)
Harvesting
There are a few tips for harvesting that you may want to know:
Flowers
For flowers, ideally you want to harvest them in the late morning when the flowers are open and the dew has dried off of them. This is just for maximum potency and quality not a safety issue.
Greens
Dandelion greens are a bitter herb, so you’ll want to harvest in early spring, so they aren’t overly bitter. (These bitter compounds are what help liver function by the way)
As I mentioned in my article on cresses, bitter greens are much better paired with rich fatty meats, fermented, or paired with a rich flavor like vinegars and brines.
That said, dandelion greens are still very much enjoyable when treated like spinach too!
Roots
The roots are best harvested in spring as well, but this is mostly so they aren’t hard and woody as they tend to get later in the year.
Your biggest challenge with harvesting the root is pulling it without breaking it. I have found that the absolute best way to harvest root vegetables is to take a garden fork of some kind, push it into the soil about 6 inches away, and lift up the soil to loosen it around the root. The plant usually pulls free very easily this way!
In our heavily mulched garden dandelion seems to pull pretty easily for the most part.
Dandelion leaf
Ok now the fun part, I get to tell you the awesome news that there ARE cultivated dandelion varieties!
Here are some noteworthy varieties:
French Dandelion: A French strain grown for the longer leaves and good root quality.
Pink Dandelion: A variety from central Asia that blooms with pink outer petals and doesn’t spread as much as yellow ones. (My sister has grown this one, photo below).
Japanese White: A Japanese variety revered for its medicinal and culinary uses. This is a slightly different dandelion species, but very delicate and beautiful.
Italiko Rosso: A cousin of the yellow dandelion (more closely related to chicory) grown for its red stems and large leaves. This variety has superior leaf flavor with less bitterness than wild dandelion.
All of these can be purchased here:
Pink dandelions (courtesy of my sister)
Reply