Delicious Ways to Eat 5 Common Wild Vegetables

What are wild vegetables? Common wild vegetables include purslane, shepherd's purse, dandelion, amaranth, sow thistle, water celery, mint, elm tree seeds, plantain, and mugwort. Different wild vegetables have different effects and ways of eating. Here is a brief introduction to some of the more popular wild vegetables.

1. Purslane

Purslane contains nutrients such as protein, thiamine, and riboflavin. It has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, cooling blood to stop bleeding, lowering blood sugar concentration, maintaining stable blood sugar, and has a certain effect on diabetes.

There are many ways to eat it. It can be stir-fried, cold-dressed, or used as a filling after being blanched. Examples include garlic-dressed purslane, purslane scrambled with eggs, purslane-filled buns, and purslane porridge.

Purslane Pancakes

2. Plantain

Plantain has the effects of clearing heat and promoting urination, cooling blood, and detoxifying. It is mainly used for heat accumulation in the bladder, difficult urination, summer heat and dampness diarrhea, red eyes due to liver heat, sore throat, and carbuncles and sores.

How to eat: It can be chopped and cold-dressed with salt, monosodium glutamate, garlic paste, vinegar, sesame oil, or pepper oil; it can also be stir-fried or added to egg or spare rib soup for soup; or it can be made into a filling for buns, dumplings, or savory pancakes. It can also be cooked with rice to make a vegetable porridge.

Plantain with Duck Intestines

3. Amaranth

Amaranth is rich in nutrients, including a high amount of amino acids. Amaranth also contains protein, fat, calcium, iron, phosphorus, and other nutrients, and has excellent blood-enriching properties. It can also be used to improve eyesight, expel pathogens, clear heat and detoxify, and for acute enteritis, tonsillitis, urinary tract infections, goiter, and uterine cancer.

Common cooking methods for amaranth include stir-frying, quick-frying, cold-dressing, making soup, serving with noodles, and making fillings. However, the cooking time should not be too long.

Amaranth Wraps

4. Houttuynia cordata

It has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, reducing swelling and draining pus, promoting urination and relieving strangury. It can also enhance immune function and has anti-tumor effects. It can be eaten cold, stewed in soup, or brewed as tea. It has a fragrant and delicious taste.

Cold-dressed Houttuynia cordata

5. Sow thistle

It has the effect of clearing heat and cooling blood, and can be used to treat mastitis, upper respiratory tract infections, acute pharyngitis, and cellulitis. The ethanol extract of sow thistle, concentrated by water decoction, has an inhibitory effect on acute lymphocytic leukemia, as well as acute and chronic granulocytic leukemia. It can be stir-fried with meat, scrambled with eggs, or used in soups.

Cold-dressed Sow thistle