Spring Stinging Nettle Pasta with Vegan Parmesan
Cheesy and flavorful, this vegan parmesan and stinging nettle pasta will leave you wanting more. Garlicky flavor, along with onions, nettles, marinated artichoke hearts, vegan parmesan, and a beautiful garnish of violets and garlic mustard flowers will make this dish not only delicious, but the prettiest noodles around. Brighten your table by making this vegan parmesan stinging nettle pasta as a celebration of wild, local plants and Spring.
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Eat From the Land
Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what’s in season, and what’s being shipped in from across the country (or across the world). Aside from the environmental costs of transporting food, produce tastes better when it hasn’t been picked early and shipped thousands of miles, all to be eaten out of their seasonal context. One very reassuring benefit of foraging is you know that those plants grew recently, and are local to your area. The stinging nettles you harvested from a local park or your lawn can only have grown there, and won’t stay in good condition for long- you know that it’s in season, and that they’re at the peak of freshness and flavor. What’s more, your plate starts to reflect the landscape you live in, and there is something poetic about that.
Identifying Stinging Nettles
Disclaimer- use caution when foraging wild edibles, and always be certain of your identification. While I assume responsibility for the accuracy of the information provided on this site, I can’t responsible for the accuracy of your information. Consult multiple websites, books and local experts, and when it doubt, do without.
Stinging nettles are not the easiest plant to identify, but with careful observation (and maybe a finger prick or two) identification is very much achievable. Stinging nettles begin appearing on the East coast in the early Spring (where I am in Massachusetts, usually April). They grow alongside rivers and roads, in fields and wetlands. They’re usually very plentiful. Stinging nettles grow in clusters, and as the summer goes on they can reach 8 feet tall. The leaves are somewhat heart shaped with jagged edges, and face opposite each other along the stalk. Younger plants might be somewhat purple or dark green and very tender, while older plants are a lighter green and will become more tough. They’re also covered with small hairs, which can act like tiny needles, injecting you with chemicals and causing the “sting” for which they are named.
To read more about properly harvesting nettles, and about their health benefits, please refer to my earlier post for Lentil and Stinging Nettle Miso Soup.
Other Elements: Violets and Garlic Mustard
I used a few other wild plants in this recipe, bringing the landscape indoors. Firstly I used the tiny white clusters of garlic mustard flowers, with their garlicky, sharp, horseradish taste. These flowers can be found just about everywhere on this wild invasive species. To learn more about garlic mustard, please read my post for Spring Garlic Mustard and Dandelion Green Vegan Frittatas. The other plant I used were the leaves and the flowers of violets. Violets blossom in large numbers in mid-Spring, with their beautiful purple or white flowers. The flowers are edible, but so are the leaves. Violet leaves are heart or kidney shaped, and have a fairly neutral flavor and a texture similar to spinach. I added these elements raw to the dish, giving the pasta a pop of color and flavor. Feel free to use other edible wild plants that are native to your landscape or season in this dish- as long as your clear with your identifications!
Vegan Parmesan: It’s Getting Better!
Whenever I think about vegan cheese, a certain Beatles song starts playing in my head- “You have to admit it’s getting better, a little better all the time!”. It truly is a marvelous time to be vegan, as public demand pushes manufactures to come up with innovative and delicious alternatives to meat and cheese products. And vegan parmesan is a great example! There are several excellent options available, but my two favorites are currently the Follow Your Heart brand of vegan parmesan cheese shreds, and Violife’s vegan parmesan cheese wedge. For this recipe I used the Violife brand, because there is something I find extra delightful about being able to grate my own parm onto this pasta. It feels, well, great!
Pastaterian? Try these other pasta dishes!
- Wild Morel Mushrooms and Christmas Lima Beans over Pasta (Vegan)
- Crown Daisy Pasta in Spicy Almond Sauce
- Savory Lemon Poppy-Seed Pasta
- Mayo-Free Radish Mint Pasta Salad
- Stir-Fried Korean Sweet Potato Noodles (Japchae) with Kale
Stinging Nettle Pasta- Putting it Together
Let’s get down to the logistics of making this stinging nettle pasta. Step one is to get some water boiling and add a little salt. Once it boils, we add the pasta to the water and let it start to cook. While it’s cooking, you can start the oil, onion, and garlic heating on the skillet on a medium heat. By allowing it to cook at a medium heat (or lower, if needed), we can cook the onions and garlic slowly, really getting all that flavor into the oil. After a while you can add your spices, and get back to the pasta. Once the pasta is about a minute away from being cooked, add the stinging nettles to the pot. They only need to cook for about a minute, so keep an eye on them! Before you drain the water from the stinging nettles and pasta, measure out a quarter cup of the pasta water and add it to the onions and spices. It will help make the whole dish more flavorful. From there it’s just about mixing all the ingredients together and serving. Voila- Stinging nettle pasta!
Spring Stinging Nettle Pasta with Vegan Parmesan
Ingredients
- ½ lb. of pasta (I used fusilli)
- 2.5 oz. fresh stinging nettles leaves and tips
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 tsp. dried parsley
- ½ tsp. dried thyme
- ½ tsp. dried basil
- 1/3 cup artichoke hearts, chopped
- ½ cup vegan parmesan cheese, grated (I used this one)
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Optional: ½-1 cup violet flowers and/or leaves, garlic mustard flowers and/or leaves, or other edible wild flowers or leaves
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it, and add pasta. About 1 minute before your pasta is completely cooked, add the stinging nettles to the water.
- While your pasta cooks, heat the oil in a large skillet to a medium heat. Add the garlic and onions, and allow to cook for around 5 minutes. If the garlic starts coloring quickly, turn down the heat. Stir in the spices.
- Before draining the noodles and nettles, take ¼ cup of the pasta water and add to the skillet with the onions. Then drain the pasta and nettles and add to the saucepan, along with the artichoke hearts tossing to coat. Lower the heat and add the vegan parmesan, tossing again, until the cheese is melted and coating the noodles. Take the noodles off the heat and garnish with edible flowers.
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Let’s hear from you…
- What wild edibles are there on your landscape that you’d like to bring onto your plate?
- What’s your favorite brand of vegan cheese?
- About the photography on this stinging nettle pasta- do you like it better than my usual, darker style of photos?
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