Herb Profile: Lamb's Quarter

Lambs quarter, Chenopodium album

Lambs quarter, also called wild spinach, tastes like spinach! It is packed full of vitamins and minerals. It is one of the most nutritious greens ever studied. The leaves have a waxy coating that is fine to consume but you can give the leaves a bath in a bowl of water to clean off the coating prior to cooking if that is preferable to you.

Edible Wild Food shares this about lamb's quarter, and has great recipes at this link. Lamb’s quarter can be eaten in salads or added to smoothies and juices. Steaming this edible weed is one method of cooking, or can be added to soups, sautés and much more. Drying this wild edible is one way to add this nutritious plant to your meals throughout the winter or you can blanch and freeze the leaves."

Preparations:

Use in place of spinach or swiss chard in any recipe. Here is a recipe for wild greens pate that is adapted from Chestnut School of Herbs:

Wild Greens Pâté

Ingredients:

Garlic

Olive oil

Tamari or soy sauce

Nutritional yeast

Choice of raw nuts

Lambs quarters

Other wild green ideas:

• Purslane

• Nettle

• Pigweed 

Instructions: 

1. Sauté 3 chopped cloves of garlic in extra virgin olive oil
2. Add the washed tender tops of lambs quarters and any other green green you have (about 7 big handfuls of greens total)
3. Sauté until tender and add tamari or soy sauce to taste
4. Blend in a blender or food processor with more olive oil, nutritional yeast and your choice of raw nuts

Note: This recipe is still delicious even if you only use lamb's quarters.

Sources: https://chestnutherbs.com/lambs-quarter/

Contraindications: Lamb’s quarters contain some oxalic acid therefore when eating this raw, small quantities are recommended. Cooking removes this acid.