You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
Or jelly, soup or a salad, or even a soft drink. The leaves are high in Vitamin C, Vitamin A and iron and contain more iron and calcium than spinach. The lowly dandelion has so many uses, I'm surprised it isn't grown as a vegetable!!
Taraxacum officinale. This native of Europe and Asia is one of the banes of gardeners around the world. These so-called weeds were brought here because the early settlers missed their pretty little yellow flowers. I, for one, don't understand the outright hatred of these versatile perennial plants. They are sprayed and weeded with a vengeance, but the dandelion, I hate to tell you, is here to stay. So stop fighting them, eat them!!
Fresh, young dandelion greens go amazingly well with hard boiled egg and bacon. There is something about the bacon fat and egg that counteracts any bitterness.Top with your favourite salad dressing and you have a healthy, tasty treat. For the less health conscious, just pour the bacon fat over it all. Yummy!! Dandelion greens can be used practically anywhere you would use spinach. Soups, omelettes, quiche. Now, don't just rush out and grab a handful of leaves and start munching. They need to be used IN something. Chop some leaves up finely and add them to you regular salad mix for a nutritious boost. Put a few leaves on a grilled cheese sandwich. Just remember, the younger leaves are good raw, the older ones can be bitter and should be cooked. Leaves grown in the shade tend to be less bitter.
You're probably here for the wine though, so we'll get on with it then, shall we? When I was a kid, every summer Dad would kick us out of the house, into the fresh air, with a bushel basket. This is best done around noon, when the flowers are fully open. We were told not to return until it was full. We would comb the neighborhood lawns like a couple of wayward cows, ignoring the strange looks from the people living in the houses. It became a game, pouncing on the biggest patch, being the first to spot the overgrown, un-mowed lawn 4 houses down, until the bushel was full. Our fingers would be yellow and sticky by this time. Dad would have us wash our hands and then find us a nice shady spot where we would proceed to remove ALL of the petals from the flower heads. The green would make the wine bitter, the less green, the better the wine. Our fingers would again be yellow and sticky. We would always be awarded/bribed with a bowl of ice cream for our efforts.
Here are two of Dads favourite recipes; the first one for adults, the second one for kids.
MAGDALINA'S DANDELION WINE
6 quarts freshly picked dandelion petals
4 quarts water
4 pounds white sugar
3 sliced lemons
2 tbsp. yeast
Pour the water over the dandelion petals and let stand 3 days and 3 nights. strain through a cloth and add white sugar, lemons, yeast. Let stand 4 days and 4 nights. Strain again and pour into bottles. Cork lightly and let stand---until your curiosity gets the better of you.
LIZZIE'S UNFERMENTED DANDELION WINE
2 quarts dandelion petals
4 quarts hot water
4 lemons, juice and rind
2 1/2 pounds white sugar
Put the blossoms and hot water in a crock and let stand for 2 days and 2 nights. Remove most of the blossoms, boil the rest with the lemons for 15 minutes. Cool, strain, and put in the sugar. Next day strain again and bottle.
DANDELION JELLY
2 cups of dandelion petals
juice and zest of 1 lemon
2 cups of boiling water
3 cups of sugar
1/2 package of powdered pectin
a dash of yellow food colouring if desired
Steep the petals and the lemon zest in the boiling water, leave overnight and then strain through muslin cloth to squeeze out as much flavour as possibe. Discard petals and zest.
In a stainless steel pot, bring infusion, sugar and lemon juice to a boil, then add the pectin and boil for 10 minutes. Take the pot off the heat and add a few drops of the food colouring if you like a nicer yellow. Keep in the fridge for up to a month.
So, stop fighting your dandelions, enjoy their incredible health benefits. Live in peace with them. They are a pretty yellow flower and add a touch of colour to an otherwise boring green lawn.
Always remember, never eat any wild plant unless you are absolutely sure of its identity.
Wine recipes were from a favourite old cookbook of my Moms, Edna Staebler "Food that Really Schmecks"
Jelly recipe from the new Zealand gardener Magazine special edition "Homegrown"
Many thanks to debilu for sharing her lovely Dandelion photos with me.
..
......
About Lee Anne Stark
I am an avid gardener who shares my gardens with 2 other equally avid gardeners. I garden for fun and relaxation, never paying attention to the rules!! During the long, cold winter months I occupy my time playing with over a hundred house plants, my six cats and two dogs.
Posted by WICKED_ZOEYGIRL (from Brooklyn, IA) on February 10, 2008 at 8:48 PM:
Take the fresh flowers, dip them in milk then flour and fry. Very good, the flowers themselves are slightly sweet.
When I made this I washed the buds first (this made them shrivel up) and then I tossed them in batter and pan fried them like fritters. They'd have been better with some garlic, but were good on their own none the less.
...
Subject: dandelion wine
Posted by donoboy (from Swansea
(United Kingdom)) on February 4, 2008 at 2:05 PM:
WOW I will surely try this i get lot,s of Dandelion,s in my garden every year.
...
Subject: Am I strange?
Posted by DriftingDude (from Charleston, SC) on February 4, 2008 at 11:11 AM:
I always thought the dadelion is a pretty flower.
...
Posted by threegardeners (from North Augusta, ON) on February 4, 2008 at 11:13 AM:
It is a pretty flower!!
It is too bad that many so people consider them a weed that needs to be systematically eradicated from the earth. I let them live in my yard. I even allow the odd one to live in my garden. I just deadhead them when they go to seed.
...
Posted by DriftingDude (from Charleston, SC) on February 4, 2008 at 1:50 PM:
I was thinking about digging up some last year that were growing on the right of way. Maybe I will this year and plant in my yard.
...
Subject: yeast for wine?
Posted by chickenrancher (from Nova, OH) on January 31, 2008 at 3:50 PM:
Is there a specific kind of yeast? I assume the bread kind is not the same? Please let me know I would love to try to make dandelion wine!!!
BTW great article. I have seen dandelion greens in "mixed greens" sold in stores :) We lovingly call it weed mix and prefer it over plain old iceberg any day.
Megan
...
Posted by threegardeners (from North Augusta, ON) on January 31, 2008 at 3:54 PM:
Yes, yeast is yeast is yeast. Bread yeast is the right stuff. The beady looking stuff in packages(Fleishmans comes to mind) that you buy for baking is the same stuff used for wine.
Good luck in your wine making endeavor. Let me know how you like it.
...
Subject: Loved the references here!
Posted by Dea (from Frederick, MD) on January 31, 2008 at 10:49 AM:
Great article first, but had no idea about Edna Staebler and Food That Really Schmecks ! I just googled it and so thank you once again, for another Article Learning moment :)
...
Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on January 31, 2008 at 11:08 AM:
Dandelions remind me of primroses (dare I say it?) lovely flowers, but the foliage leaves something to be desired. Now that I know how to eat the foliage leaves, well, that's a different story... Great article! xx, Carrie
...
Posted by doccat5 (from Fredericksburg, VA) on January 31, 2008 at 11:16 AM:
So glad to see these delicious plants getting such a great positive article. Thanks for sharing :)
...
Posted by debilu (from Fingerlakes Region, NY) on January 31, 2008 at 11:41 AM:
Great article Lee Anne. I've never tried greens, and heard of the wine, but didn't realize you made it from the petals. Do you still work for ice cream?
...
Posted by threegardeners (from North Augusta, ON) on January 31, 2008 at 1:01 PM:
Dea...Edna Staebler and her Mennonite Country cooking series are my most used cook books, I love all of the recipes in them. Mom has a few that I keep borrowing and forgetting to return, but she always reminds me. The recipes are from a time that nobody cared about anything in food except the taste.
I am so glad I could bring this poor so called weed to peoples attention.
Yes, debilu, I still work for ice cream :)
...
Subject: Hooray for dandelions!
Posted by svplantingfool (from South Venice, FL) on January 31, 2008 at 8:33 AM:
Thanks for a great article about my favorite "unwanted by the masses" plant! I love the greens in a salad or pan fried in olive oil, though the bacon fat sounds tastier!
...
Posted by roybird (from Santa Fe, NM) on January 31, 2008 at 12:35 PM:
Love the recipes! I got some excellent dandelion wine from a friend recently. Just what I need to get me through the winter.
...
Posted by Lindawalkabout (from Holden, MO) on January 31, 2008 at 4:14 PM:
Great artical, I love dandelion greens cooked with onions and bacon.
bought some dandelion jelly last year , loved it. So thanks for the recipe and for the wine and non wine recipes too, hiccup!!!!!!!
when the flowers are fully open. We were told not to return until it was full. We would comb the neighborhood lawns like a couple of wayward cows, ignoring the strange looks from the people living in the houses. It became a game, pouncing on the biggest patch, being the first to spot the overgrown, un-mowed lawn 4 houses down, until the bushel was full. Our fingers would be yellow and sticky by this time. Dad would have us wash our hands and then find us a nice shady spot where we would proceed to remove ALL of the petals from the flower heads. The green would make the wine bitter, the less green, the better the wine. Our fingers would again be yellow and sticky. We would always be awarded/bribed with a bowl of ice cream for our efforts. 
