Stinging Nettle Vegan Green Minestrone
For all the freshness of spring, we have a vegan green minestrone soup featuring stinging nettle shoots. It brings together the herbed green flavor of stinging nettles, fennel, and green peas with the heartiness of white beans, pasta, and button mushrooms. Top with vegan parmesan for a little extra flavor. Honestly, I only got to eat one bowl of this delicious fresh soup- the one I took pictures of- because my partner came home from work and quickly finished off the pot. If you’re looking for a way to celebrate early spring flavors, green shoots, and amazing flavors, make this soup with us!
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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.
How to Forage for Stinging Nettles
Stinging nettles (aka Urtica dioica) are a wild growing plant, often considered a weed, that can be found in the northern parts of North America, Asia, and Europe. These highly nutritious greens can be found along roadsides, at the edges of fields, and just about everywhere once you start looking.
Nettles first appear in the New England area around April, and are best for eating while they’re still under 6 inches or so in height. As they grow older into the summer, they get tough and are no longer great for eating although they can still be used for tea. Some people also continue to eat the older tips, but I prefer only to eat spring nettles. Nettles will come back in the same places year after year, so once you find a good patch you can continue to pick there as long as you make sure not to over pick.
Stinging nettles grow from a single stalk, and you will typically find many plants growing together. Young stinging nettles are often purple in color, and as they get older they fade to green. The plants grow small, with jagged, oval or heart shaped leaves that are arranged opposite on the stalk. While the young plants you want to eat are only a few inches tall, they will eventually grow to be as tall as 8 feet high. The easiest way to tell if a stinging nettle is a nettle, is to reach down and touch it’s stalk or the underside of some of the leaves. The plants are covered with thin, tiny hairs, and part of the plants defense to being picked are the array of stinging chemicals that the nettles inject you with when touched. While the sting can be painful or itchy, it will fade and isn’t too big of a deal.
Young plants may not sting you yet, but you can use gloves when handling them if you want to make sure not to get stung. The nettles are rendered harmless by boiling, crushing, or letting them wilt on your counter. Once the sting is gone, you’re left with one of the most nutritious super-vegetables. They are high in vitamin A, C, K, and B vitamins. Additionally, they are high in iron, calcium, potassium, and silica. Nettles have a distinct, herbaceous flavor that add a lot of fun to this minestrone, and, once the sting is gone, it cooks sort of like spinach.
Looking for Vegan Stinging Nettle Recipes? Try one of these!
- Spicy Stinging Nettle Kimchi Recipe
- Stinging Nettle Recipe: Falafel with Nettle Yogurt Sauce
- Garlic and Herb Vegan Nettle Breadsticks (Urtica dioica)
- Spring Stinging Nettle Pasta with Vegan Parmesan
- Lentil and Nettle Soup
How to Make Stinging Nettle Vegan Green Minestrone
Let’s get making soup! This isn’t a challenging recipe (it is soup, after all), but I’ll give you a few tips for how to make it. The first thing to do is to gather your nettles. The best, most tender nettles are the early shoots that come up in the Spring. I like to pick nettles when they are about as tall as my hand is wide. The extra benefit of that is they are less likely to sting you at this time. If there are no young nettles left, you can pick off the tops of larger nettles instead. Wash your nettles and chop them roughly and set aside.
After that get the rest of your vegetables prepped. You’ll want to sauté them in a certain order so that you can build the flavors and make sure not to overcook (or undercook) them. Once all the vegetables aside from the nettles have made it into the pot, add your broth and use that to cook the pasta. I like pastina for this because I think the cute little stars in your soup are excellent. The stinging nettles, green peas, and white beans are the last bits added to the soup because they don’t need much cooking. Salt and pepper your soup to taste, and garnish as desired with vegan parmesan and fennel fronds. I also added a few fried leek greens to the top of mine. Settle into Spring, and enjoy your wild vegan green minestrone soup!
Stinging Nettle Vegan Green Minestrone
Ingredients
- ½ fennel bulb, plus a few sprigs of the leaves
- 1 large shallot
- Oil, for cooking
- 1 large leek
- 2 cloves garlic
- 3 oz. button mushrooms
- 6 cups vegetable broth
- 1 ½ cups pastina (or other small pasta)
- 1 ¾ cups cooked white beans
- 1 cup shelled green peas
- 3 cups stinging nettle leaves, lightly packed
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Vegan parmesan, for serving (optional)
Instructions
- Prepare your vegetables. Chop the fennel into small pieces. Cut the mushrooms into similarly small pieces. Remove the top, green part of the leeks. Cut in half and slice thin half-circles down the length. Wearing gloves, roughly chop the stinging nettle leaves.
- Heat a small amount of oil in a large pot. Add the fennel and shallots, cooking on a medium heat. Sauté for a few minutes, stirring, until the fennel and shallots soften. Add the leeks, garlic, and mushrooms. Cook for a few more minutes until the mushrooms have released and then add the vegetable broth. Bring the broth to a simmer and then add the pasta. Season with salt and pepper.
- Let the pasta simmer for about 5 minutes before adding in the white beans, nettles, and green peas. Cook for another 2 minutes and remove from the heat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm, and garnish with vegan parmesan and fennel leaves as desired.
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