Stinging nettle is a common hardy perennial whose young spring tops, once cooked, lose their sting and make deep green soups, risottos, pies and a wrapping for Cornish Yarg.
What it is¶
The stinging nettle is one of the most familiar plants in Britain and Europe: a tall, clump-forming perennial of hedgerows, riverbanks, farmyards and neglected corners, with toothed, heart-shaped leaves covered in fine stinging hairs. Each hair is a tiny, brittle, glass-like tube tipped with silica. Touch it and the tip snaps off, the hair pierces the skin like a hypodermic needle, and a cocktail of irritants, including histamine and acetylcholine, is injected.
Treated properly, it is also one of the best wild greens there is. Young nettle tops taste like a deeper, earthier spinach, and the sting is destroyed by cooking, by thorough drying, or by blending or crushing the leaves so the hairs break. Nettles are abundant, free, and at their best in early spring when there is little else green to pick.
The small or annual nettle (Urtica urens) is also edible and can be used the same way. Dead-nettles (Lamium), which look similar but do not sting, belong to the mint family.
Origins and history¶
Nettles have been used for food, medicine and fibre across Europe for thousands of years. Nettle fibre was spun into cloth from at least the Bronze Age, and in Germany and Austria it was used again as a substitute for cotton during the First World War.
As a food, nettles were a traditional spring green, eaten after the lean winter months in soups, porridges and puddings. Samuel Pepys recorded eating nettle porridge in his diary in February 1661 and pronounced it very good. Nettle beer was a common country drink in Britain.
Nettle soup remains a spring tradition across northern and eastern Europe. In Sweden it is nässelsoppa, often served with halved hard-boiled eggs; in Finland, nokkoskeitto. Italians make risotto alle ortiche and nettle pasta, and Greek cooks add nettles to wild-greens pies. Beyond Europe, nettle soup (sisnu) is a long-standing food in Nepal and the Himalayan foothills.
In Britain, the best-known modern nettle food is Cornish Yarg, a semi-hard cow's milk cheese wrapped in nettle leaves, which form a mould-ripened rind. Its name is the surname of the couple who revived the recipe, Gray, spelled backwards.
Flavour and aroma¶
Cooked nettle tops taste green, deep and slightly mineral, somewhere between spinach and chard, with a faint grassy, cucumber-like freshness. They are less watery than spinach and keep more body when cooked. Older leaves become coarse, stringy and bitter.
Dried nettle, as a tea, is mild, grassy and hay-like.
In the kitchen¶
Pick only the tops: the top four to six leaves of young plants, from roughly March to May, before flowering. Use gloves and scissors. Once the plants flower, usually by early summer, the leaves become tough and are generally considered no longer good to eat, although cutting a patch to the ground in June will produce a second flush of tender growth.
Prepare them by washing in plenty of water (with gloves) and stripping the leaves from any thicker stems. Blanching for 30 seconds to a minute in boiling water destroys the sting completely; the leaves can then be squeezed, chopped and treated like cooked spinach. Roughly 200 g of fresh tops (a carrier bag loosely filled) cooks down to about a cupful.
- Nettle soup. Soften an onion and a diced potato in butter, add a litre of stock and simmer until the potato is tender, then add 150–200 g nettle tops and cook for 2–3 minutes. Blend, season, and finish with cream or crème fraîche. For Swedish nässelsoppa, thicken a nettle stock with a little flour and butter, and serve with halved boiled eggs.
- Risotto. Stir a purée of blanched nettles into a risotto near the end, with Parmesan and butter. The colour is spectacular.
- Pies and pasta. Mix chopped blanched nettles with feta or ricotta for pies, börek and ravioli fillings, or knead the purée into pasta or gnocchi dough.
- Pesto. Blanched nettles make a good pesto, especially mixed with wild garlic.
- Crisps. Toss raw tops in oil and salt and bake at 150 °C (gas mark 2) for 10–15 minutes until crisp; the heat and drying neutralise the sting.
💡 Rubber gloves, not gardening gloves
Nettle hairs pass through thin cotton and many knitted gardening gloves. Washing-up gloves are ideal for picking and preparing.
Buying and storing¶
Nettle tops occasionally appear at farmers' markets in spring. They wilt quickly: keep them in a bag in the fridge and use within two days.
Blanched, squeezed nettles freeze very well in portions for up to six months. The leaves can also be dried for tea or for crumbling into soups; dry them thoroughly, then store in an airtight jar for up to a year. See freezing herbs and drying herbs.
Substitutes¶
Spinach is the obvious substitute in any recipe, though it is more watery; use a little more and squeeze it well. Chard, beet tops and young kale also work. Wild garlic, sorrel and other spring greens often share the pot with nettles.
Pairs well with¶
Potatoes, eggs, butter and cream, soft and salty cheeses, rice, barley, onions and leeks, garlic, wild garlic, nutmeg, lemon, sorrel, chives and lovage.
Growing your own¶
Few gardeners need to plant nettles, but a contained patch is useful to cooks and is one of the most valuable plants for wildlife: it is a food plant for the caterpillars of peacock, small tortoiseshell and red admiral butterflies.
- Position. Nettles thrive in rich, moist soil, especially soil high in phosphate, which is why they cluster round compost heaps and old farm buildings.
- Containing. They spread aggressively by creeping yellow roots. Grow them in a large sunk container or a corner where they can be cut back hard.
- Harvesting. Cut the whole patch down in late spring or early summer to force a new crop of young tops.
- Other uses. Soaked nettles make a strong-smelling but effective liquid plant feed.
See foraging wild herbs.
Health and safety¶
Nettles are safe to eat once cooked, but a few points matter.
- Never eat raw nettle leaves unless they have been blended, crushed or thoroughly dried to destroy the hairs.
- Where to pick. Avoid roadside verges, field margins that may have been sprayed, industrial land and popular dog-walking routes. Pick well above ground level and wash thoroughly. Get the landowner's permission where needed, and do not uproot plants. See foraging wild herbs.
- Identification. Stinging nettles are hard to mistake, but pickers of mixed spring greens should know the dangerous plants of the same habitats. See poisonous lookalikes.
- Stings. A nettle sting is painful but not usually dangerous. Wash the area with soap and water and avoid rubbing. Seek medical help for widespread stings or any sign of an allergic reaction.
- Medicines. People taking blood-thinning, blood-pressure or diabetes medication, and those who are pregnant, are commonly advised to avoid concentrated nettle supplements and large quantities of nettle tea; ordinary culinary amounts are a different matter.