Benefits Of Dandelion Root: A Common Weed Worth Digging For
Updated: 2 days ago
Benefits Of Dandelion Root
I have a particular love for common weeds. Not the rare plant you have to travel miles to find, but the plants growing at our feet everywhere, often even considered a nuisance. Nettles, chickweed, cleavers, plantain – and perhaps the most familiar of them all, the dandelion.
We know its sunny flowers and drifting seed clocks. We are rather less familiar with what's under the surface. Dandelions are so ordinary that we hardly notice them. They appear in lawns and fields, push up between paving stones and return no matter how enthusiastically they are dug out. And yet almost the entire plant is edible.
Dandelion Root is an edible root with earthy bitterness and an ingredient many may overlook: naturally occurring inulin fibre with a range of potential benefits. Although research into its health effects is limited, in the kitchen it already has plenty to offer:
The young leaves can be eaten as a bitter green; the buds make a lovely addition to pickled vegetables; the flowers can be made into a golden syrup simply by layering them with sugar; and the petals can be sprinkled over cakes and salads. Even the seeds can be harvested and eaten once the fluff is removed. And beneath that familiar rosette of leaves is a long taproot that has been valued both as food and in traditional herbal medicine for generations.
Nutritionally, the leaves are particularly interesting. As well as providing fibre, they contain a range of vitamins and minerals, including carotenoids, iron, manganese, copper, zinc, selenium and potassium.
But as the leaves start to fall in Autumn, it's the root of the plant that most interests me.
Why Autumn Is A Great Time To Start Digging
Through spring and summer, the dandelion is busy above ground: producing leaves, flowers and eventually those wonderful clocks of seeds. As summer turns towards autumn, the plant begins putting more of its resources underground into its taproot, ready to see it through winter and fuel another year's growth. This is why autumn is traditionally such a good time to begin harvesting dandelion roots. And there is something quite lovely about following that movement of the plant. In spring I might gather the young leaves and flowers; later in the year, my attention follows the plant back down into the earth.
The root becomes an entirely different ingredient.
Dandelion, Nettles and Our Chutney
I've brought dandelion root together with another of my favourite common weeds – the nettle – in our chutney. Dandelion brings an earthy, pleasantly bitter depth, while ingredients such as fennel seed round everything out into something rich, savoury and complex. I also wanted the sweetness to come from food rather than simply pouring sugar into the pan. So our chutney is sweetened only with dried fruit.
That natural fruit sweetness works particularly well against the bitterness of the dandelion. Sweet, sour, bitter and savoury all have a place. Perhaps that's another reason I enjoy cooking with wild plants: they remind the palate that flavour is much bigger than sweetness. You can try out our Dandy Root Chutney by ordering online with ease today:
What Is Actually in Dandelion Root?
One of the particularly interesting components of dandelion root is inulin. Inulin is a type of carbohydrate and soluble dietary fibre that the plant uses to store energy. Unlike ordinary sugars, we don't completely digest inulin in the small intestine. It travels onwards to the colon, where it can be fermented by bacteria living in the gut. This is why inulin is described as a prebiotic fibre: it can provide food for beneficial members of our intestinal microbiome. Dandelion root also contains a collection of naturally occurring plant compounds, including phenolic compounds and the constituents responsible for its characteristic bitterness. And those bitters are part of a much older story.
A Traditional Digestive Bitter
Human beings have eaten bitter foods for a very long time, although bitterness has gradually disappeared from much of the modern diet. Dandelion certainly hasn't lost it. The root has traditionally been used as a digestive bitter, particularly for mild digestive complaints and loss of appetite. When we taste something bitter, receptors in the mouth immediately recognise it, and bitter herbs have traditionally been taken before or around meals to encourage appetite and digestive activity. Dandelion root also has a long history in herbal medicine as a liver and digestive herb, particularly in connection with bile and its flow from the liver. It's worth saying that this is traditional use rather than a proven treatment for liver problems – modern research in people is still limited. For me, though, dandelion doesn't have to be treated as a remedy to be valuable. It is also simply a good, interesting food – one that brings fibre, a little bitterness and a completely different flavour to the kitchen.
Don't Just Make Dandelion Coffee
Probably the best-known use of dandelion root today is roasted dandelion “coffee”. The roots are scrubbed, chopped, dried and roasted until dark and wonderfully aromatic, then ground and brewed into a deep brown drink. It has that satisfying roasted bitterness we associate with coffee, but there's an important difference: dandelion doesn't contain caffeine, so it won't give you coffee's stimulating lift.
But roasting and brewing it is only one possibility. Dandelion root is, after all, a root vegetable.
Put It on the Plate
This is perhaps the part of dandelion I find most exciting. Once you've dug and scrubbed the roots thoroughly, you can start treating them as an ingredient rather than a remedy. If they're nice and chunky, roast them. Add them to soups and stews. Cook them alongside sweeter roots. Chop them into preserves and chutneys. Experiment with them wherever their earthy bitterness might bring another dimension to a dish. They pair particularly well with sweeter, creamier roots such as celeriac.
Which brings me to these.
Dandelion & Celeriac Fritters
Ingredients
75g celeriac
25g dandelion root
2 eggs
2 tbsp flour
A handful of whatever herbs you have handy, such as parsley, thyme or dandelion greens
Garlic
2 large pinches of salt
Oil for frying
Method
Whisk the eggs and flour together. Grate the celeriac and dandelion root, chop the herbs and dandelion leaves, and press the garlic. Mix everything together, then spoon the mixture into hot oil in a frying pan. Fry until golden brown on both sides. The celeriac brings sweetness and softness, while the dandelion brings its earthy bitterness. These go beautifully with some pickles or sauerkraut – but, of course, a spoonful of dandelion and nettle chutney alongside wouldn't go amiss either.
In Praise of Common Weeds
Perhaps this is ultimately why I love dandelions. They're not exclusive. They're not fashionable. They're not a new “superfood” arriving from somewhere far away. They're common. Most of us have been taught to see them as something to remove. But instead of asking, How do I get rid of this weed?, perhaps we can ask, What can I make with it? And maybe then we'll start welcoming dandelion into the garden as an old friend. As autumn approaches, I'm following them underground – digging the roots, bringing them into the kitchen and finding another way to make something delicious from one of our most ordinary and extraordinary weeds.
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