Stinging Nettle Soup

Stinging nettles are such a wonderful Spring tonic food. I find soup a great way to get them into the diet. They have a mild flavour yielding a soothing comforting bowl of soup that’s great on a cold Spring day. A third pound nettle leaves is quite a bit so make sure you harvest enough. The shrink down significantly when cooked. While you can certainly use more nettles in this recipe, I find this a nice amount that does not overpower the rest of the ingredients.

It’s such a simple recipe, the depends on the backbone of a good broth to really shine. In this recipe I used my standard chicken broth, which is usually heavy on the thyme - because I love it so much. See my post on broth. It includes a few vegetable based options as well.

Although I know herbalists that can pick nettles with barehands, I prefer to use gloves 🙂 I immerse the freshly picked nettles in a large container of cold water and use tongs to swish them around. Once they are steamed or blanched they lose their stinging quality.

STINGING NETTLE SOUP

1/3 pound fresh young nettle tops - yielding about 1 cup after blanching and draining

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion diced

2 stalks celery chopped

2 carrots diced

3 cloves garlic minced

4 cups quality broth or stock

2 cups cooked beans of your choice or one can drained

1 teaspoon thyme

salt and pepper to taste

1. Wash the nettle tops and blanch or steam them for a few minutes till wilted and still bright green. Drain and chop the nettle tops

2. Meanwhile, sauté the onion in olive oil for 5-10 minutes till soft. Add the celery, carrot, and garlic and sauté five minutes more

3. Add the broth, beans and thyme and bring to a gentle simmer for about 10 minutes till the carrots are tender

4. Add the chopped nettle and adjust seasoning to taste with salt and pepper

5. Enjoy