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Home / Feature 2 / ‘Tis the Season for Stinging Nettles… In Sauerkraut!

Posted October 11, 2018 by Addie Rose

‘Tis the Season for Stinging Nettles… In Sauerkraut!

Stinging Nettles

Zoe Garnder, HerbalistThis guest blog is written by our friend Zoe Gardner, a self-proclaimed herb nerd and plant lover with over 20 years of experience working with medicinal plants.  A specialist in the quality and safety of medicinal plants, she is the author of the 2nd edition of the American Herbal Products Association Botanical Safety Handbook, a reference text on the safety of over 500 medicinal plants.  Zoe helped found the Medicinal Plant Program at UMass Amherst, spent seven years overseeing product development and product safety at Traditional Medicinals, and now splits her time between working as a research consultant to herbal companies and creating botanical pottery. You can find more about her pottery on Instagram and Etsy. She is proud to be a member of the Real Pickles Advisory Board.


Organic Nettle KrautI am so excited for Real Pickles’ new small batch Organic Nettle Kraut! If you’ve spent any time learning about herbs, or if you have friends who love using herbs or foraging for wild foods, then you probably share my excitement.  But, if you haven’t heard of nettles as an edible plant, and especially if you’ve brushed up against nettles and experienced its famous sting, the idea of nettle kraut probably sounds a little crazy to you. When nettles are prepared properly, they make an amazing addition to food or tea, with a level of rich green goodness that’s hard to top.

Herbalists and wild food enthusiasts get *very* excited about nettles.  Here in the Northeast they are among the first plants to come up in the spring, providing rich edible greens after a time when greens are traditionally in short supply, and, perhaps most importantly, signaling the end of winter. For wild food enthusiasts, nettles provide the first chance to go foraging and eat fresh local greens. For herbalists, nettles are one of the most widely used herbs in the Western herbal tradition. They are considered a nutritive tonic that contains a full spectrum of vitamins and minerals, providing nutritional support to benefit the health of all the systems in the body.  Nettles are one of the many plants that blur the line between food and medicine. I often think of them as super-kale, so wonderfully full of nutrients that in order to persist in the wild they need to protect themselves with stinging hairs.

Each spring I try to find the time to harvest, cook, and freeze nettles so that I’ll have them around throughout the season. The greens are a wonderful addition to soups, stews, and many other dishes where spinach or kale are used.  Some people even make the savory Greek spinach pie, spanakopita, with nettles instead of spinach. But I don’t always get around to preserving fresh nettles, and when I do it’s a bit of a production – chopping leaves with gloves on so that I don’t get stung by the fresh plants.  So, I’m very grateful that the Real Pickles crew took the time to preserve some nettles in kraut so that I can enjoy the taste of fresh nettle in the fall and winter.

The timing of nettle and cabbage harvest seasons don’t usually coincide very well, with the main cabbage harvest in New England running from September to November, and nettles being one of the first plants up in March or April.  Nettles do stick around all summer, but they get tougher and more prickly as they grow, especially as they start to flower.  When nettles are properly tended and repeatedly cut back over the course of the growing season, the new leaves can be harvested several times in a season and are just about as tender as that first spring harvest.  Real Pickles worked with a Vermont farm, Foster Farm Botanicals, to get the timing just right, receiving a wonderful fresh and tender delivery of nettles to ferment with the first of this year’s cabbage crop.

This small batch Organic Nettle Kraut is a simple and delicious blend of cabbage, fresh nettles, sea salt, and scallions.  It’s all the fermented and probiotic benefit of kraut with the addition of the green goodness of nettles to help keep you well-fed and healthy through the winter, until you can go pick some fresh nettles in the spring.

Find a list of stores that carry Organic Nettle Kraut here…


RECIPE: Nettle Kraut Pancake with Herbal Schav (cold vegetable soup)

Nettle Kraut Pancake and Herbal Schav recipe    Serves 4, Vegetarian and gluten free.

Pancake Ingredients:

  • 1, 15 oz jar Organic Nettle Kraut, strained, liquid reserved for schav
  • ¼ t baking powder
  • 1 clove garlic, finely grated
  • ¼ cup flour (gluten free: blend 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part rice flour)
  • 2-4 T nettle kraut brine
  • clarified butter for frying

Pancake Directions:

    1. Strain sauerkraut, reserving liquid for both loosening batter and for schav (below)
    1. Combine flour and baking powder, whisk
    1. Grate garlic and mix with kraut
    1. Add dry ingredients to the kraut and garlic mixture and fold together
    1. Add kraut brine a little at a time to achieve a slightly stiff, cake-like batter
    1. Fry on a medium-hot pan in clarified butter until crispy
  1. Serve hot alongside room temperature schav
Greens for Herbal Schav recipeSchav Ingredients:
  • 3 hard boiled eggs
  • approximately ½ lb. mixed greens (such as swiss chard, kale, collards, nettles, brussels sprout leaves, pea shoots, turnip or beet greens, sweet potato leaves)
  • approximately ¼ lb sorrel
  • approximately ¼ lb herbs (mint, parsley, dill, nasturtium leaves, etc.)
  • 2 cups greens cooking liquid for thinning puree
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • brine from one, 15 oz jar Organic Nettle Kraut
  • ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
  • salt to taste
  • 1 ½ cups creme fraiche, sour cream, or yogurt

Chilling greens for Herbal Schav recipeSchav Directions:

    1. Blanch greens in well-salted boiling water then shock in an ice bath, reserve cooking liquid.
    1. Puree cooked greens with garlic, nettle kraut brine, and some of the cooking liquid
    1. Add the sorrel, puree to smooth
    1. Add raw herbs (mint, parsley, dill, nasturtium leaves) a little at a time, pureeing, and tasting/adjusting for desired flavor, reserve a handful for garnish
    1. Slowly add olive oil to puree while blending to thicken
    1. Strain puree through a fine mesh sieve *
    1. Salt to taste
    1. Stir in creme fraiche
  1. Finish with a squeeze of lemon, chopped herbs, boiled eggs (halved) and serve alongside nettle kraut pancakes
* Straining is not necessary, but yields a thinner, silkier soup. The solids can be used to make a nice, herbaceous pesto when mixed with crushed nuts, additional garlic, cheese or nutritional yeast, and more olive oil.
Nettle Kraut Pancake and Herbal Schav recipe

Recipe contributed by Bill McKerchie.

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Still looking for that perfect gift? How about som Still looking for that perfect gift? How about something that supports regional organic farms, creates meaningful jobs in our community, and is super delicious?! Consider a few jars of Real Pickles ferments or one of our cozy organic cotton tees! Check out the store locator on our website to find the Northeast store closest to you, or order a 4 jar sampler, some colorful merch, or a Real Pickles gift certificate on our webstore!
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Yesterday’s staff lunch was catered by Amy McMah Yesterday’s staff lunch was catered by Amy McMahan and Chef Masenie of Mesa Verde in Greenfield, and instead of their usual Cali-Mex menu, we arranged, through Amy, to have Masenie, an immigrant from Haiti, prepare us an authentic Haitian meal and WOW was it delicious! Last June, Greenfield became home to many Haitian immigrant families, and in an effort to help the newcomers feel at home, Amy has been hosting Haitian pop-ups at her restaurant every Sunday evening, serving up this unique and delectable cuisine prepared by Masenie. “I feel like when people feel represented with their cuisine, it’s really what diversity, inclusion and equity is about,” said Amy, and we couldn’t agree more! Our quarterly staff lunches are a time for all of us at Real Pickles to gather, share a meal and create community beyond the day to day work duties. We love it when these lunches become an opportunity to support another local business doing great things! If you’re local, check out the Haitian pop-up, every Sunday from 5-7pm at @mesaverdegf
There is something so comforting about a warm sand There is something so comforting about a warm sandwich on a chilly day. Real Pickles ferments are a tasty and nutritious addition to a grilled cheese. We love adding Organic Sauerkraut and sliced tart apples to ours and creating a sweet and savory, toasted masterpiece! The possibilities are truly endless! Show us your favorite grilled cheese and ferment sandwich, tag us and include the hashtag #MyRealPickles for a chance to win a 4 pack of your favorite Real Pickles ferments!  Details in comments. 

#RealPickles #grilledcheese #ferments #organic #recipeideas #northeastgrown 

📷@clarebarboza @poppybeesurfaces
Real Pickles uses organic, regionally-grown vegeta Real Pickles uses organic, regionally-grown vegetables, abundant with healthy microbes for our ferments. Fermentation by these healthy microbial communities produce many nutritious compounds unique to fermented vegetables and help to increase the availability of essential nutrients to the body! How are you getting your daily ferment fix? 

#RealPickles #regionalfood #organic #fermentation #microbes #fermentedveggies #beets
Wishing you all a healthy and joyous holiday of gr Wishing you all a healthy and joyous holiday of gratitude. 🧡
Take a moment this week to learn about the history of Thanksgiving. The United South and Eastern Tribes @uset.inc has a brief and powerful list of resources for all ages. Link in our bio.
Get ready to please your gut, your taste buds, and Get ready to please your gut, your taste buds, and your party guests! Check out these simple and festive beverage ideas using your left over pickle brine or Beet Kvass. Serve these tasty mock-tails at your next holiday dinner party or family game night! Recipe in bio. 

#guthealth #mocktails #fermented #recipe #organic 

📷by @clarebarboza

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