One Plant a Week: Dandelion
This is the first post in our new series, One Plant a Week, where we learn a new, edible plant every week. That means that if you follow along, you’ll know 52 new plants after only a year of doing this. As our foraging expert guest Pascal Baudar said on the Wild Fish and Game Podcast, that will make you more of a wild plant expert than 99.99999% of the population.
We recommend you go out and find these plants if they exist in your region. You don’t necessarily have to harvest them; simply familiarize yourself with them and get to know them well. See them in their different phases of life, in different terrains and conditions. See who else likes to eat them (Bears? Squirrels?), pollinate them (Butterflies? Hummingbirds?), or use them (Nesting birds? Muskrats?). Use plant ID apps, along with foraging/ID books, online resources, and mentors to teach yourself about them more and to get comfortable enough with them that you can ID to 100% accuracy.
Then, if you feel confident enough, bring some home and try preparing some to eat. Try doing this with different specimens in different stages of life to see when it is best to harvest them. Knowing these plants through and through will transform the way you interact with the outdoors, as well as the way you see food. A warning though: this is an addictive hobby!
An additional warning: Plant ID apps are not 100% accurate, and you should not be eating ANYTHING wild unless you are 100% sure that it is safe to do so. Do not rely solely on one source for your information, and do not eat anything unless you’ve properly identified it.
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This Week is All About the Common Dandelion
The common dandelion, or Taraxacum officinale, is a flowering plant from the daisy family that has come to be known as a pesky weed. These are hardy plants that can deal with varying levels of water, temperature, competition, and overcrowding, and because of this, have happily spread across much of the temperate world. First brought to America as a food source by Eurasian emigrants, dandelions can be found in most parts of North America in parks, boulevards, backyards, fields, agricultural areas, and even sidewalk cracks.
Dandelions have many look-alikes, but are easy to spot and identify if you pay attention to the entire plant rather than just the yellow flowers. Put the look-alikes below through a search engine, or look them up in an identification book to see the differences between them and common dandelions.
Every part of the dandelion is edible during certain phases – root, crown, stem, leaves, buds, flowers, and seeds.
Description
Root:
- Hearty taproot, generally unbranched and usually several inches long if growing in ideal conditions
- Can be twisted, split, and gnarly when growing in tough conditions
- Thin brown skin covers off-white flesh with a visible core
Leaves:
- Leaves are oblong with shallow to deeply lobed teeth which can appear sharp or rounded
- Leaves can be 2-17″ long, and form a tight crown from the base
Stem:
- Stems are purplish-green, un-branching, hollow, and can be 2-30″ tall
- When broken, stems emit a white, latex sap
- Stems are leafless and support a flower head on top
Flower:
- Flowers start out as tight buds that stay close to the root base, then shoot up on stems before opening into bright yellow flowers, with 40-100 individual florets comprising the flower
- Flowers fade from yellow to white and fluffy as they age, with each floret forming a silk “parachute” that holds onto a seed. These seeds detach and float in the wind to find new homes.
Look-alikes:
- Colt’s foot
- Hawkweed
- Sow Thistle
- Cat’s Ear
- Hawksbeard
- Wild and Prickly Lettuce
None of the stems on these look-alikes share all of the features of a dandelion stem, making them easy to identify. None of these look-alikes are highly toxic, but care must still be taken to ID properly. Remember: not all yellow-flowered plants are dandelions!
Edibility
All parts of the dandelion are edible during different phases, including root, stem, buds, leaves, and flowers.
Root:
- Harvest with a sharp digging tool or stick
- Wash well by soaking and scrubbing in cold water
- Peel off the brown skin and immediately submerge the roots in cold water to avoid oxidizing/browning
- Grate and cook like carrots for salads, cakes
- Roast and brew like coffee – use liquid for kombucha, tea, ice cream, etc.
- Fry, boil, sauté like carrots
Leaves:
- Do not harvest in places that have been sprayed with herbicides, in heavily polluted areas, or in areas with excessive dog waste
- Harvest before plant flowers for less bitter leaves
- Leaves harvested in the spring and late fall are sweeter
- Whole leaf crowns can be harvested by slicing them off of the root
- Wash well in cold water
- Leaves can be eaten raw, or cooked by sautéing, steaming, simmering, stir frying, braising, etc.
- Bitter leaves can be boiled in 2-3 changes of water to reduce bitterness
Buds:
- Tight buds can found close to the root base
- Buds can be cooked much like Brussels sprouts
- Buds can be salted and cured like capers
Stems:
- Stems can be stir-fried or used like zoodles (zucchini noodles)
Flowers:
- Great for beginner foragers and kids!
- Can be added raw into salads, desserts, and dishes for sweetness and color
- Can be made into dandelion flower syrup or honey
- Can be made into jelly
- Can be made into wine, kombucha, mead
- Can be made into ice cream
- Can be made into candies and baked goods
- Can be used to make soaps and lotions
Seeds:
- Seeds can be harvested by rolling them in a bag between your hands to separate them from their “fluffs”, or by quickly (and safely) burning off the fluffs
- Seeds can be used to grown tasty microgreens
- Can be used in baked goods, granolas, or salad toppers
- Can be turned into flour
- Can be made into mustard
- Can be pressed into oil
