Dandelion Recipes & Remedies

Eat the weeds!

Spring means that it’s dandelion season for most of the country, and it’s the perfect time to try your hand at making a few dandelion recipes and remedies.

That’s right, dandelions are not only edible from their sunny blossom down to their root tips, but dandelions are also medicinal!

A few years back, I put together a collection of more than 60 dandelion recipes and remedies help you all appreciate this golden bounty. Some of my favorites include:

• Dandelion Wine

• Dandelion Liqueur (simpler than wine)

• Cooked Dandelion Roots (like carrots)

• Dandelion Root Coffee (for a caffeine-free coffee substitute)

• Dandelion Capers (made with unopened flower buds)

Dandelion liqueur

And, of course, there’s always the option of a fresh dandelion greens salad each spring too. While obviously not as healthy as a salad, my kids are especially fond of dandelion treats, including:

• Dandelion Jelly

• Dandelion & Honey Marshmallows (no corn syrup)

• Dandelion Cookies

• Dandelion Gummy Bears

• Dandelion Ice Cream

Some of the simplest dandelion remedies include:

• Dandelion Tincture

• Dandelion and Burdock Herbal Bitters

• Dandelion Oil

Making Whole Plant Dandelion Tincture

Tell me your favorite ways to use dandelions! Leave me a note down in the comments…

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Ps…Dandelions for the Bees

Every year I have people message me saying, “Don’t eat the dandelions, save them for the bees!” I don’t disagree…our pollinators are vitally important. We literally started our homestead with the goal that it’d be a pollinator and amphibian sanctuary, first and foremost.

I get it.

Here in rural neighborhoods, most of us can harvest dandelions by the wheelbarrow full without really denting the population…and on our land, I could harvest several tractor-trailer loads each year without making a dent. We’re basically dandelion farmers.

Educating people about why they should leave dandelions (and other wildflowers) on their lawns and not spray their land is so important to me that I actually devote a large amount of space on my DIY blog, specifically to edible flowers. The whole point of this dandelion evangelism is to foster an appreciation for these important pollinator food sources, so that there are more of them.

Ironically, often the best way to get people to do something for pollinators/birds/amphibians/butterflies/etc is to first convince them that it’s in their own best interest.

(I talk about this extensively in my article on why you should eat milkweed in order to help the monarchs.)

I know not everyone lives in a dandelion-filled world, and that many of you live in tightly controlled suburbs where heavily sprayed lawns are the norm. Still, even there, the best thing you can do for the bees is to not spray your own lawn, and then make a big batch of dandelion jelly for your neighbors (and maybe a few bottles of dandelion wine while you’re at it).

A gallon of hand-cleaned dandelion petals that we used to make tasty dandelion gifts for friends and neighbors. This is maybe one-millionth of our total “dandelion crop.”

Show them that dandelions are more than just weeds, next year you may have a few more unsprayed yards on your block. I actually have people email me every year looking for dandelion seeds, so they can actually PLANT DANDELIONS just so they can make these recipes.

That, my friends, is my definition of success for the pollinators.

A few dandelions on a single lawn will not save (or doom) the bees either way, and they’ll go a lot further if you use them to change a few minds in the process.

Believe it or not, the more people that eat dandelions, the more dandelions there will be to eat…for us and for the bees.

Until Next Time,

Ashley at Practical Self Reliance