This is a dense and delicious dark green nettle soup. Make it when nettles show up at the farmers markets in the Spring. Be sure to wear gloves when handling the nettles or they'll sting ya!
Yum! This was super easy to prepare and wonderful. My only criticisms would be: 1) This is too rich. Rather than a soup, it would make an amazing pasta sauce, particularly for cheese ravioli. 2) What is the cream shown in the photo? We served it with kackavall, an Albanian salty cheese similar to feta, but I'm guessing sour cream or heavy cream would also be good.
Read MoreYum! This was super easy to prepare and wonderful. My only criticisms would be: 1) This is too rich. Rather than a soup, it would make an amazing pasta sauce, particularly for cheese ravioli. 2) What is the cream shown in the photo? We served it with kackavall, an Albanian salty cheese similar to feta, but I'm guessing sour cream or heavy cream would also be good.
this is really good soup! added a bit of lemon juice to my recipe and it came out excellent! I served mine with a dollop of sour cream and sprinkled with pepper. It was a major hit with the husband!
This is so easy to make and tastes great. I ate it as a soup, but plan to use the leftovers on pasta as a previous reviewer suggested. I will also use low salt chicken broth next time as it was just a little salty for my taste.
Simple yet so delicious. I would agree with the other reviewers, that it would make a better sauce than a soup because the flavor of the nettles was a bit overwhelming for me when I ate it straight. It reminded my husband of palak paneer, so he added chunks of sauteed tofu to the soup and it was a great addition! We'll eat the leftovers over rice.
We made a half batch of this, close to how it's written. Had 1/2 lb of nettles, but since we wound up with more than 2 cups of chicken broth (the can we had was around 20-22 oz), I used the full 1/4 cup of rice and the whole medium onion to thicken it a bit. This is a nice, simple recipe which has an unexpected depth of flavor. It made our first experience with actually EATING stinging nettles (rather than simply getting stung by them) a very good one. We'll definitely make this again!
OMG, yum!!! I have to admit I didn't measure anything and I added way more rice than required. When I lifted the lid after simmering it, it was like a risotto and so so yummy!!! Wow, I'm hoping I can recreate it exactly, it was DELISH. My 1 1/2 year old devoured it and my meat loving husband couldn't get enough. I can't wait till next week when I can buy more nettles at the farmers market!!!!
Ive been drinking stinging nettle tea for years... thank you for this great recipe...
Very nice! Went out and harvested some nettles this afternoon. Good spur of the moment recipe. I modified it a bit though, with chopped potatoes instead of rice, and a dash or two of sugar (didn't have any honey). Thank you, and love the pic!
I make this in batches to feed 50 people. I don't measure anything and I make it much less thick. Also I substitute barley for the rice. Everyone loves it. Every time. Even the meatiest of the meat eaters ;)
Deeelicious. Read the recipe, eyeballed the amounts, went out and picked some nettles, and it turned out great. Very forgiving.
Delicious! My family loves it. I like it with a squeeze of lemon.
Easy and delicious! I doubled the broth and halved the amount of nettles since other people said the recipe was more like a sauce. I kept the other ingredients the same. It was brothy but still had body after being puréed. My kids were super skeptical and both ended up eating everything in their bowls. Make sure you use basmati rice! I think that's the secret ingredient that gives it so much flavor. Regular rice won't do. Yum.
So deeply green it is like eating Ireland! I did not pick my own nettles. I cannot judge if they were good, bad or indifferent in quality. The part of the recipe that suggests cutting off the tough stems is important. I cut many, but too many were left behind. I used a standard blender to purée the soup and long tough fibers were wrapped all around the blades. That made it easy for me to get ''em out of the end dish, but many ended up in the bowl. Still edible, but not ideal. I will be wiser next time, and there will be a next time! It is a lovely soup, it seems doubly useful as a starting point for so many other delicious things.
When i first saw this i was really intrigued. I am really surprised it turned out delisious!
Even when I can't get anything to grow in my garden in the spring, due to our crazy late freezes, The nettles never fail to provide spring greens. We ue them like spinach. They are delicious! This soup was the first nettle dish we tried.
I had some nettles pop up in a big pot in the garden. I used the lot to make this soup. There was exactly half the quantity asked for in this recipe. But after I other people's comments that it was quite rich with the full amount, I thought it wouldn't matter that I only used a half pound (250g). Also, I only added the blanched nettles after the 15 minutes of cooking and then only cooked the soup a further 15 minutes as I didn't want to overcook the nettles. And I used brown basmati rice. I processed it using my bullet blender in 3 batches so it was silky smooth. My husband and 10 year old daughter love it! Yum. Thanks for the recipe.
Thank goodness for simplicity! It's hard enough picking and cleaning these plants, taking the leaves off their stems. The rice really helps to thicken the soup and prevent it from becoming chunky. Try glutinous rice instead of basmati—even better! I compared this recipe to Martha Stewart's, and while hers is very flavourful (full of butter and sweet red onion) it doesn't come out so vividly green. Less cooking and more vitamins Martha! Hers also has the chunkiness I mentioned. No amount of blending will change it. One detail I did steal from Martha was to add tiny 1/4" cubes of boiled russets as garnish. It was really painstaking to cut the potatoes like this, but the elegance and extra dimension really made for an amazing soup.
super nutritious and satisfying soup. You can really feel the food power of the nettles. First time I made it was with homemade chicken broth and THAT version was sublime. Always a little less good with bouillon cubes.
What a wonderful recipe, thank you Always Cooking Up Something! This soup is OUTSTANDING, and what a surprise!! I had no idea how delicious Stinging Nettle can be, and my 13-year-old daughter and I harvested it from our yard for the first time. In the past we have just pulled it like a weed for the compost. To make the soup vegetarian, substitute a full bodied vegetable stock for the chicken broth. I use Trader Joe's Vegetable Stock. I did make one other change you might try that make this already-easy recipe, even easier: There isn't really any need to blanch the nettle in water. Instead, after the onions are translucent (per recipe), add uncooked stinging nettle directly to pan with onions and cook over med/high heat for 2-3 minutes until nettle has completely wilted. Not only is this easier because it eliminates a step in the recipe, but it might also more nutritious (perhaps there is some vitamin loss in the blanching process?). And, since you'll be emulsifying the soup, there's no need to chop the nettle (per recipe). After the nettle is wilted, add your other ingredients and continue on with the recipe as written.
Loved this soup... so Ireland green!! And so easy and very surprising! Who knew such a plant could make such a soup! I added garlic to the onion and trimmed thicker stems off! Next time I’m going to make it with potato instead of rice.... saw that recipe from a British cook!
