The spring landscape is a grocery store that charges nothing. Before the season's leaves fully open, wild plants surge with nutrients accumulated through winter.
1. Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
The entire plant is edible at every stage. Young spring leaves (before flowering) are the least bitter — add raw to salads or sauté with garlic and olive oil. Flowers make excellent fritters, wine, or jam.
2. Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica)
Wear gloves — the sting from raw nettles is memorable. But blanch for 60 seconds and the sting disappears, leaving something that tastes like spinach with substantially higher protein and iron content.
3. Ramps (Allium tricoccum)
Wild leeks emerge in dense patches in moist hardwood forests before trees leaf out. Identifiable by their broad elliptical leaves and unmistakable garlic-onion smell. Both leaves and bulbs are edible raw or cooked.
4. Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodium album)
Arguably the most nutritious weed in North America. A relative of quinoa, it grows prolifically in disturbed soil. The young leaves, harvested before the plant bolts, are exceptional cooked like spinach.
5. Wood Sorrel (Oxalis spp.)
The three-leafed, clover-looking plant with a bright lemony-sour flavor. Add leaves and flowers to salads for a refreshing acid note.
6–10
Chickweed — mild and succulent, excellent raw; Garlic Mustard — invasive and garlicky flavored; Violets — flowers and leaves edible raw; Miner's Lettuce (western states) — tender and mild; Cattail shoots — peel to the white inner core, eat raw like cucumber or sauté.
Always use a printed field guide for positive identification before eating anything.