Cooking
All parts of plant are edible, though the leaves and the flowers are the most delicious. Because the greens are quite bitter, they are often paired with ingredients that temper the bitter bite. Dandelion greens are delicious both raw and cooked, while dandelion flowers can be used to stunning effect for garnish and to make all sorts of jellies, drinks and pickles.
Dandelion greens are often paired with rich ingredients like eggs, bacon and nuts. A classicFrench raw dandelion saladincorporates bacon, croutons, hard-boiled eggs and a Dijon dressing. They also pair well with strong flavors like garlic, onions, chiles and lemon juice. Dandelion greens are also excellent cooked. They can besautéedorbraised, just like other greens. Toss them into pasta and pair with a strong cheese like Parmesan or Pecorino, or make this delicious-soundingdandelion tartfor your next brunch.
Blanching dandelion greens removes some of their bitterness. To blanch: Remove any thick stems from your dandelion greens. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Toss in the dandelion greens and blanch for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove and plunge into an ice bath. Remove from the ice bath and squeeze as much water from the leaves as you can then use as you would any cooked green. (If you’ve harvested wild greens after the plant has flowered, the leaves may be especially bitter, and you may need to blanch them twice.)
Fresh dandelion flowers don’t have much flavor and their chief use in the kitchen, aside from their use in preserved foods (see below) is to add a cheerful yellow garnish to dishes. Pull petals from the flowers and scatter over a salad, rice or other grain, or toss whole flowers into salads. The flowers can also bemade into a teathat supposedly helps with bloating. Like its relativechicory, dandelion roots can be roasted and used as acoffee substitute(caffeine-free, of course). The roots can be boiled and served as avegetable, or steeped into a tea.
Preserving
Have a very weedy yard? Forget about those noxious pesticides. So much can be done to preserve dandelions! You canpickle dandelion buds or make lacto-fermented dandelion soda, dandelion wine, dandelion jelly,dandelion vinegar or dandelion bud “capers.”
Nutrition
Raw dandelion greens have a lot ofVitamin K, necessary for blood coagulation and bone health. The greens are also a great source of Vitamins A and C, and a decent source of iron, calcium, Vitamin E, potassium and manganese. The leaves even have a little bit of protein.
