Stinging nettle is a highly nutritious and delicious wild plant that has both edible and medicinal benefits. Once cooked, the sting is dissipated and it can be eaten like any leafy green. There are many amazing and unique ways to use nettle. Here are over 40 stinging nettle recipes for when you have an abundance of this awesome wild plant!
Wildcrafting Weeds
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Foraging and Using Stinging Nettle
With a little planning ahead and safety precautions in place (I’m talking about gloves here!), you’ll be foraging for stinging nettle, an extremely nutritious wild plant that can be used medicinally to relieve what ails you.
If you’re not convinced you want to mess around with an edible herb that can sting you, rest assured, I was in your shoes not that long ago.
However, after undergoing a few stings to my hand, it actually wasn’t as bad as I thought and was only uncomfortable for a few hours. That said, some people do have a stronger reaction to the sting of nettle than others.
The good news is that once nettle is cooked, steamed, blanched or dried the stinging compound completely goes away.
Fresh stinging nettle leaves
Thankfully so, because this incredible superfood is full of vitamins and minerals! Nettle is especially high in vitamins A, B complex, C, K, iron, potassium, calcium, and manganese.
Nettle is found across much of the world, but is particularly prolific here in the Pacific Northwest.
If stinging nettle doesn’t grow in your area, head over to Mountain Rose Herbs, my favorite place to buy high quality, organic herbs.
Stinging Nettle Recipes
Here are some great recipes to make with your foraged or dried stinging nettles!
Stinging Nettle Drinks
Dry some of your stinging nettle for this recipe for nettle-ade! It’s paleo-friendly and can be made easily with ingredients you probably already have on hand. It’s delicious and perfect for a hot day!
Stinging Nettle-Ade
Make this refreshing nettle iced tea with foraged stinging nettles!
Check out this recipe
A nettle cordial requires nettle tea, like the nettle-ade above, but is steeped for 24 hours to extract the maximum amount of nutrients and has wild ginger added as an extra medicinal bonus. Try adding it over ice with some whiskey for a great libation!
Nettle Cordial
Not everyone realizes that stinging nettles can also make a tasty wild beverage. Stinging nettle cordial is a refreshing herbal drink that can be enjoyed on its own or in a flavorful adult beverage.
This nettle and pine needle tea sounds delightful and right up my alley! (Yes, pine needles are edible too). Plus it’s simply relaxing to look at.
Blend banana, cucumber, coconut milk, avocado, pineapple, and a healthy dose of nettle leaves together for this paleo and vegan friendly stinging nettle smoothie. This is the stuff of tropical dreams that’s reminiscent of a warm night on a beach with my toes buried in the sand.
Stinging Nettle Smoothie
Don't let its sting scare you away, the stinging nettle packs a powerful nutritional punch, and is a great addition to smoothies like this foraged, tropical stinging nettle smoothie.
For an alcohol beverage, try making this nettle beer that has a lemony tanginess to it. It’s simple to make and you could be sipping on it in less than two weeks from when you harvested your nettles!
Nettle Beer
Nettles, also known as Stinging Nettles, are delicious and versatile wild plants. Their signature sting disappears when the nettles are cooked, so they can be harvested as greens, drunk as a mineral-rich tea, or even used to make this delicious nettle beer recipe.
Stinging Nettle Sweets & Baked Goods
Let’s say you made a batch of nettle-ade and are thinking of composting the leftover nettles, but wonder how you can reuse them.
Instead of discarding them, give them a second life in this stinging nettle fruit leather recipe with apple and pear. What a great way to create less waste!
Stinging Nettle Fruit Leather
Nettles are hugely nutritious, with all sorts of health benefits, so I am delighted to have come up with a recipe for Stinging Nettle, Apple, & Pear fruit leather, which the kids are so keen to eat
Or try these raw chocolate cupcakes with nettle icing! Now that’s a cupcake I gotta try.
Chocolate Cupcakes with Nettle Frosting
These Raw Chocolate Cupcakes with Nettle Frosting came to Life as a complete experiment and I totally fell in love with these gorgeous mini cakes. I’ve picked the nettle chocolate combination for the colour, not really knowing whether it would work, but the flavours! What a yummy wholesome treat these are.
Tasked with baking and decorating a beautiful cake? Look no further than this gorgeous nettle and lemon cake with lemon icing and blackberries.
Nettle & Lemon Cake with Lemon Icing & Blackberries
Yes, a stinging nettle cake! Boiling the nettles gets rid of the sting, and this cake tastes very spring-like as the flavour of the nettles fades away beneath the zesty lemon.
Take a look at this delectable and creative nettle cake that is an ode to moss gazing! How cool is that?
Nettle Cake
A stunningly-magical cake that is also really easy, full of nutrition, and tastes wonderful? This nettle moss cake is the best of all worlds. This cake is a vibrant green without the use of any food coloring and is incredibly easy to decorate. A fresh citrus flavor makes this cake extra scrumptious.
For something on the savory side of the spectrum, try this easy nettle bread or sourdough rye nettle bread. Maybe whip together some lemon juice and butter to adorn a slice perhaps?
Wild Nettle Bread
Instead of mowing down your nettle patch, try using them in your cooking! Here I have created a recipe using a few handfuls of nettles added to bread dough. Its delicious, and nutritious!
Another option are these thick and cheesy savory nettle scones that would be great smothered in butter.
Savory Nettle Scones
Stinging Nettle Scones are best eaten warm, spread generously with butter.
This savory nettle spanakopita Greek pastry is a creative way to use your foraged nettles. Check out all those flaky layers!
Nettle Spanakopita
Spanakopita is a delicious savory Greek pastry. It is traditionally made with spinach, but it is just as delicious, and more nutritious, when made with stinging nettle.
Pancakes are a very popular addition to lunch and dinner in Scandinavian countries and are often served savory, like these stinging nettle pancakes.
However, you can easily make them sweet by adding a bit of sweetener to the batter or by serving them with a jam, syrup or both!
Stinging Nettle Pancakes
One of my absolute favourite ways to enjoy wild stinging nettles is in pancakes. Nordic pancakes are similar to French crêpes in size and texture. I serve these pancakes with jam, but I have also tried them with sour cream and smoked salmon, as well as sprinkled with sugar.
These delicious looking nettle crepes can also be sweet or savory, your choice!
Nettle Crepes
These crepes are tender and nutritious, and taste equally good when stuffed with savory wild mushrooms or yogurt and jam. You can use the same crepes for a hearty dinner or a light dessert or breakfast.
Stinging Nettle Savory Dishes
In 2007, a recipe for ancient nettle pudding was declared Britain’s oldest recipe. The list of ingredients consisted of sorrel, watercress, dandelion, nettles, and barley that is simmered in a pot of boiled wild game meat.
Ancient Nettle Pudding
According to Celtnet Recipes, “when most food was boiled in a large pot, adding dumplings or ‘puddings’ to stocks (was) a good way of putting starch in the diet. These large dumplings are flavoured with wild herbs and nettles.”
8,000 years ago humans were taking full advantage of the wild edible and medicinal plants in their area and not disregarding them as a nuisance that needed to be eradicated from their backyards! But I digress.
Sometimes all you need is a crisp and crunchy snack to be satisfied midday. These stinging nettle crisps scratch that itch and are an excellent alternative to store bought chips. Try switching up the spice combinations with some of your favorite flavors!
Nettle Crisps
Nettle Crisps are cheap and simple to make, delicious and incredibly healthy!
As a delicious start to any meal on days when the weather turns cooler, try this ultra creamy nettle soup with garlic and potatoes!
Nettle Soup
Stinging nettle is a highly valued medicinal and nutritional forage. This delicious creamy nettle soup perfect way to entice a reluctant diner to eat foraged foods!
This chicken and nettle pie looks and sounds incredible and would be another great option for those spring days that suddenly take a colder turn.
Chicken & Nettle Pie
This rustic pie shows off the nettles affinity with chicken. It’s superb warm from the oven, but equally good cold, as part of a spring picnic perhaps.
Or try this beautiful gluten free nettle leaf and cheddar tart!
Nettle Leaf & Cheddar Tart
This delicate Nettle Leaf and Cheddar Tart makes the most of the first of spring’s nettles luxuriously mixed with a good cheddar to make a glorious tart in beautiful flaky pastry.
In Asia, a congee is rice simmered in a broth and is a dish that’s eaten every day. This nettle congee is the perfect way to utilize some of the ingredients in your refrigerator that are on the cusp of becoming compost.
Nettle Congee
Congee, a traditional soup of rice and broth in Asia, is commonly made with local herbs for healing purposes. This nettles congee recipe combines east and west and is a great example for how to use stinging nettles.
You could also try this super green nettle risotto. Seasoned forager Hank Shaw says that it rocks and I believe him!
Nettle Risotto
Stinging nettle risotto rocks. It is the essence of “green,” and is super healthy, too.
Want to try making your own pasta? It’s hard to get this nettle ravioli or homemade nettle pasta recipe wrong. Serve both of them with melted butter, parmesan cheese, or even this nettle pesto.
Nettle Ravioli
This recipe is a mashup of two traditional Italian nettle pastas. The pasta itself is a nettle pasta, which when cut into linguini-like strands is called strettine. The filling is from the far north of Italy, Alto Adige and Trentino. It’s surprisingly like an Irish colcannon: mashed potatoes with minced nettles — plus a healthy bit of mascarpone cheese to make it Italian.
Stinging Nettle Pasta
Fresh stinging nettle is one of our most nutritious wild foods and makes a great cooked green, and it's also a perfect addition to fresh hand-made pasta. Since it keeps its bright green color after cooking, it makes a beautiful and healthful pasta.
Stinging Nettle Pesto
Stinging Nettle Pesto makes a tasty spread on bread or crackers, a delicious dip for fresh veggies, or a sauce for pasta.
Get even fancier with this nettle tortelli in mushroom broth, or this amazing sounding nettle gnocchi!
Short on time during a busy work or school night? Quickly saute stinging nettles in minutes.
You can also steam nettles, add toasted sesame seeds, and chive blossoms as another great way to switch up your work day lunches. Try meal prepping one day a week so you’ll always have a healthy dish ready on hand.
Steamed Nettles with Toasted Sesame Seeds & Chive Blossoms
Have you ever wondered how to cook nettles? This recipe for Steamed Nettles with Toasted Sesame Seeds and Chives is easy to make. It’s earthy and flavorful and very healing. You could serve this along side sweet brown rice and a piece of seared fish or tofu, or toss with soba noodles, or simply eat a bowlful of it, like I do. Nettles are packed full of calcium, iron and magnesium, and are a natural detoxifer.
In three to six weeks time you could be the proud user of stinging nettle vinegar in marinades, vinaigrette dressings, or even as a hair rinse!
Nettle Vinegar
Once you’ve made your nettle vinegar, you can incorporate it into marinades and dressings.
Ah, pizza how I love you. Topped with an over easy egg, this wild nettle pizza looks fantastic and has me practically salivating at how scrumptious it is.
What goes best with fresh seafood? That would be nettle butter, of course! Slather the goodness on salmon or melt and use it as a dip for crab meat.
Nettle Compound Butter
For any grilled meal from spring through fall, I pull out a log of nettle butter, slice it into rounds and let it melt onto the cooked foods. It’s a sauce, a flavoring and a taste of the wild that you can forage in woods and meadows. Or, like me, find invading your very own garden.
Start your morning right with this hearty nettle and cheddar cheese omelet. A side of easy no knead sourdough bread, anyone?
Stinging Nettle and Sharp Cheddar Omelet
Filled with stinging nettle, chives and cheese, this 6-egg omelet makes a an excellent breakfast served with fresh fruit and cream, or a simple lunch when paired with a salad and crusty slice of no-knead sourdough bread.
Stinging Nettle Remedies
Stinging nettles are antioxidant, anti-ulcer, antimicrobial, astringent, and diuretic. They can also treat an array of inflammation issues that occur in muscles or joints, as well as skin problems like acne and eczema.
When flu season is around the corner, don’t forget about your friend, stinging nettles! Brew up a mug of this immune boosting sore throat tea and say so long to that cold.
Immune Boosting Sore Throat Tea
Kick that cough and cold to the curb with this DIY, Herbal Immune-Boosting Sore Throat Tea!
A fizzy clay facial cleanser made with nettle powder is an effective remedy to treating hormonal acne and removing built up oils on the skin. Dabbing brewed nettle tea turned toner onto your skin has been shown to be successful in aiding those problematic areas.
Stinging Nettle Fizzy Clay Facial Cleanser
A stinging nettle powder helps to soothe an irritated and itchy skin. It’s a must in this homemade bubble clay mask. Stinging nettles are effective natural cleansers of the skin, and they’re appropriate for oily skin.
In addition to being great for skin, stinging nettles have been used for centuries as a hair and scalp treatment that promotes growth and thickness. Try making this strengthening nettle vinegar hair rinse to reap its benefits.
Nettle Vinegar Hair Rinse
Nettle leaves are rich in many nutrients and they are a great ingredient to add to hair care. Nettle can help with hair loss, strengthen hair, help with dandruff, and increase a healthy hair shine. It’s the perfect herb for hair care!
One of the best ways to utilize the benefits of nettle is to make a nourishing nettle infusion. I drink this instead of taking a multivitamin and it makes me feel great!
Infusions for kids probably aren’t the first thing to come to mind when thinking about preparing stinging nettles. If your child is spending a full day at school or outside playing, give them a beneficial mineral boost with a nettle, hibiscus, and raw honey tea that they’ll for sure love.
Nettle Infusion for Kids
This nourishing nettle infusion stands right alongside bone broth in our home as mineral rich boost for busy bee kids and is one of the first teas I like to introduce to their palates to develop a love for herbal tea.
Because of stinging nettle’s anti-inflammatory qualities, it’s also extremely useful for seasonal allergy relief! Try making some nettle powder or a tincture and sneaking it into all your favorite foods.
You can also fill capsules with the powder and take them orally to relieve congestion, sneezing, and itching that can occur with hay fever. A lot of grocery stores and pharmacies now sell herbal allergy-aid remedies with nettle as one of the potent ingredients.
Nettle Powder
Just make up some nettle powder top have on hand, and you can sneak it into your family's food without them even knowing! How to make nettle powder--so easy!
If you’ve read this far, you must feel compelled to get out in the field and start foraging for and using stinging nettles! Now that you’ve perused through some of my favorite nettle recipes, which ones are you most excited about trying?
