Pickled Ramps Recipe How to Pickle Ramps at Home | Hank Shaw (2024)

FAQs

Pickled Ramps Recipe How to Pickle Ramps at Home | Hank Shaw? ›

Pour the salt in and turn the heat to medium-high. Once the vinegar mixture is hot, pour in the honey and stir to combine. When the vinegar mixture is simmering, add the ramp bulbs and boil 2 to 3 minutes. Pack into the jar, making sure to not overfill -- there's a line on the jar marking the proper headspace.

There are lots of ways to preserve ramps, from canning to pickling to kimchi, but I prefer freezing. The leaves turn mushy and a little bit gross after freezing but the bulbs are fine. To get around the problem, I freeze the bulbs whole but turn the leaves into pesto. Slice off the roots and discard.

To enjoy raw ramps, simply slice them and use them as you would scallions or chives. Sprinkle raw ramps into salads, on scrambled eggs, over the top of tacos, or on a baked potato with sour cream. You can cook whole ramps by tossing them lightly in olive oil and searing in a grill pan or on a hot barbecue.

Pickled ramps can be chopped and added to a salad, pasta or pesto, or featured on a cheese and charcuterie platter.

Ramps are more flavorful than scallions and leeks but not quite as potent as garlic or onions. They add an earthy and savory quality to your dishes. You can eat them raw, but their flavor softens when sautéed in butter or cooking oil.

Cut off any hairy roots, peel off the first layer of leaves, and rinse or wipe off any excess dirt on the bulbs. Slice the ramps thin and use fresh in salads or sauté them with scrambled eggs or fried potatoes. You can also grill or roast them—the stems, leaves, and bulbs are all edible.

You can tell a healthy, mature patch by whether it flowers in the summer, covering mountainsides in white blooms. When harvesting ramps, consider leaving some of the bulbs in the ground so they can grow back next year; ramp patches spread well if you leave a few bulbs behind. You can still harvest the leaves.

Use as a topping for grilled fish, vegetables and mixed into pasta. Incorporate into your aioli for your fish, meats and vegetables. For fish, it can be used as a tartar sauce. For meats, it works well with grilled items, and for vegetables it is perfect as a dip.

Ramps can be eaten raw, like green onions or scallions, but they're frequently cooked down, like leeks. While they aren't as hardy as leeks, the leaves are much more resilient to heat than the delicate shoots of chives or scallions, so don't be afraid to add some to a stir-fry or side of sautéed greens.

How do you harvest and prepare ramps? ›

Historically, ramps have been harvested by indigenous people by either snapping off the bulb above the roots, leaving them in the ground to produce another plant, or by taking no bulb at all, but taking one leaf from each plant. Both of these methods have been time-tested and seem to have sustainable results.

In the most severe cases, it's led to hospitalizations, with symptoms including vomiting, cardiac arrhythmias, dangerously low blood pressure and even seizures. “It has a toxin in it that opens up our neuronal and our cardiac sodium channels,” Holstege said.

Or, you can vacuum seal the raw ramps and freeze them. The very popularity of these wild treats may lead to their demise so if you're out foraging be careful to harvest sustainably by taking only half of each clump you dig and replanting the rest.

For longer storage, ramps can be blanched and then frozen. Blanch the ramps in boiling water for about 30 seconds, then quickly transfer them to an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Once cooled, gently pat the ramps dry and freeze them in a single layer on a baking sheet.

The narrow, white bulb and purple-red stems need only to be coarsely chopped before they are frozen. The green leaves, however, should be blanched before they are frozen. This blanching step helps the leaves keep an attractive bright green color rather than turning brown when they are frozen and then thawed.

Seal Your Ramp

Then, you can use a sealer, stain or paint to protect your wooden ramp from ultraviolet light, fungus growth and moisture damage. While sealants are clear coats that protect the wood's surface from damage, stains block the wood's pores, and paints coat its surface to offer protection.