Simple Stinging Nettle Infused Vinegar Recipe
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Stinging nettle is either hated or loved, but really mostly unknown by many! I’m going to show you today how to make a nettle infused vinegar and we’re gonna talk about the why, what, where, and how’s!
Why Nettle Infused Vinegar?
Nettle has a plethora of health benefits. This plant contains numerous vitamins like A, B complex, C, potassium, iron, calcium, and manganese. While eating fresh nettle in recipes is delicious AND beneficial, during the winter months I still want to enjoy those health boosts from nettle, so I preserve it. Making an infused vinegar is an extremely easy way to do that.
You can also tincture nettle with alcohol or glycerin, but vinegar infusions, also sometimes known as a tonic (herbal infusion) or even an oxymel if you add honey. Oxymels are a pleasant way to take many herbs and they basically have an indefinite shelf life. And with fruit based vinegars being extremely easy to make from scraps after canning, they’re easy on the pocketbook too and don’t have you running out of the liquor store looking like you have a problem.
I have also found that vinegar infusions are easy to “hide.” Not necessarily lie to my family about what they’re eating, but I can use it in recipes already needing vinegar and just have an herbal boost to it as well. Think salad dressings, shrubs, things of that nature. Anything you would already be using apple cider vinegar (or apple scrap vinegar) in.
TL;DR it tastes good and its good for you so make this OR ELSE.
Or else there’ll be more nettle for meeeeeeeee.
What is Stinging Nettle?
There’s a reason stinging nettle comes out in the early spring! When you start dabbling in herbalism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and foraging, you begin to see patterns of the grand design that is our Earth God made for us. Everything is perfect!
Stinging nettle is known as an alterative herb, which supports detoxification and purification of the blood. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, heat trapped over your liver is known as congestion that can readily be remedied by consuming stinging nettle due to nettle’s “cooling nature.” I know an odd amount about nettle, ok?!
Stinging nettle is an early spring plant here in Ohio that usually starts popping up the beginning of April. Usually earlier but I don’t start picking it until after Easter.
Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) is known for its unpleasant sting, which causes some itching, redness, and burning for a couple hours. Wherever I get stung has little white spots that eventually turn red and get itchy. I find it’s maybe a little uncomfortable, but not the worst pain I’ve ever come into contact with! Signed a Mom with 2 naturally birthed children.
Stinging nettle has saw toothed edged, heart shaped leaves that are bumpy and stems that have “hairs” that are the stingers along the stems all the way to the leaves. They grow in an upward pattern, pointing upward to the sky. If you pick the plants bare handed and pull in an upward motion, you usually won’t get stung!
BUT. The stings are actually good for you! People laugh at me when I say that, but it’s true. They make jokes like WELL YEAH BECAUSE YOU’RE ITCHING TO DEATH YOU FORGET ABOUT WHAT’S BEEN BOTHERING YOU.
I’m here to tell you that if you have arthritis pain, bad knees, sore muscles, whatever inflammatory that is hurting you… go get stung real good by some nettles and you’ll feel better. And not just because you’re itchy. The topical application of fresh leaves by stinging is thought to actively reduces inflammation!
Where to Find Stinging Nettle?
I’m in north central Ohio and have found that stinging nettle is everywhere around here! I can’t be certain about other regions of the United States, so check a foraging book for your region.
You can find nettle growing along wooded tree lines on the edges, around old structures (barns, houses), and along fence rows that are older as well. It for some reason really, really likes old barns! They grow by rhizome root systems and are found in dense patches together due to this usually in shaded areas. Some nettle plants can get up to probably 8 feet tall! We grow some big dudes around here if I’m not butching them down every chance I get to eat them :D
Our old barn, built in the first half of the 1800s likely grows them like weeds! But much like the dandelion, nettle is seen as a pest and a weed and not loved nearly as much as it should be. It’s another herb we’ve been conditioned to see as painful and a pest, instead of highly medicinal and delicious!
Nettle is commonly mistake for mint as the leaves are slightly similar. Just look for the stingers!
NETTLE VINEGAR REEL
I mean… it’s hard to put a price on a plant that grows so readily in folks’ yards when you could be selling arthritis meds and pain relievers instead!
How to Use Stinging Nettle
Oh the ways to use nettle! So abundant! And so many that’ll I’ll never get them all written in a blog post for you!
First, if you’re going to eat it, use it in any recipe that you’d use spinach in. The flavor profile is very similar and it’s really good sauteed in a bit of bacon fat, in a chicken pot pie, or even as a spinach substitute in spinach artichoke dip.
When cooking nettle, a quick 1-2 minute blanch, sauté, or steam removes the sting! One of my favorites is to chop the stinging nettle leaves and stems up roughly, sauté quickly in my cast iron with heated bacon fat, and then top on a pizza and let the nettle leaves get crispy. IT IS SO GOOD!
Other ways to use stinging nettle are dried for tea or as powder to mix into smoothies or other recipes, herbal vinegars like this nettle vinegar recipe I’m gonna give you, and even dried and powdered as a natural soap colorant. It gives cold process soap a GORGEOUS green hue! (Which you will see from time to time in my online farm shop!).
Some folks are more inclined to make a nettle tincture, which works wonderfully as well if you prefer that. I’m just more of an infused vinegar girly lately because I enjoy taking that so much better and I don’t want to buy alcohol. Stinging nettle vinegar is amazing!
Spring nettle can be easily dried in the sun on a sunny day or in your dehydrator, or even freeze dryer. It doesn’t take all that long to dry out just in the sun on a tray! Dried nettle will store in a vacuum sealed jar for about 1 year. If it’s any older than that, I use it as a natural soap colorant!
Harvesting Nettle
This is nuanced and my personal preference, but I find that the top few inches of the nettle plant are the most tender and potent (could be wrong), so I only harvest that and leave the bottom bit with leaves to grow again.
Harvest in the early morning before the hot sun is out to get the most potent plant. You can use afternoon nettle just fine, it’s also just been told to me to use early morning before the dew burns off as the plants goodness is more concentrated and has not been burnt off by the sun yet.
Clip the tops off of each plant, being sure to leave leaves behind for the plant to grow more for you! Be careful getting stung if you’re super sensitive and wear gloves and love sleeves if preferred. I know I’m weird, but getting stung is suppeerrrrrrrr good for you!
But, also, suck it up. It doesn’t hurt that bad. :D
Equipment You Might Want
Pint Glass Jar with Lid
Scale
Ingredients
Fresh stinging nettle
Raw Apple Cider Vinegar or Apple Scrap Vinegar
Step 1: Assemble
Place pint glass jar onto scale and tare.
Using freshly harvested & washed nettle tops, pack into the bottom of the jar until 1 ounce by weight has been added to the jar. I push them to the bottom so they don’t float and will stay submerged in the vinegar to prevent mold.
Add vinegar to the 1-inch headspace mark
Cover with a nonreactive lid, either an old canning lid lined with parchment so the vinegar doesn’t touch it and rust, or a plastic or glass lid.
Step 2: Infuse
Place the jar in a cool place away from direct sunlight and allow it to infuse a minimum of three weeks, but I let it sit at least 8 weeks. Then strain.
Store in a jar or swing top glass bottle. Label.
Shelf life is basically indefinite because it’s vinegar.
Notes
If you forget about your infusing vinegar, fear not. It’s fine! I frequently do this and the guidelines are for when its ready to be used, not when you HAVE to strain it by :)
If you would like to make this an oxymel, add up to an equal amount of honey to the jar instead of all vinegar.
You can use dried nettle for this too, just use about 1/4 the weight of fresh that is called for.
Equipment
- Pint Glass Jar with Lid
Ingredients
- Fresh stinging nettle
- Raw Apple Cider Vinegar or Apple Scrap Vinegar
Instructions
Step 1: Assemble
- Place pint glass jar onto scale and tare.
- Using freshly harvested & washed nettle tops, pack into the bottom of the jar until 1 ounce by weight has been added to the jar. I push them to the bottom so they don’t float and will stay submerged in the vinegar to prevent mold.
- Add vinegar to the 1-inch headspace mark
- Cover with a nonreactive lid, either an old canning lid lined with parchment so the vinegar doesn’t touch it and rust, or a plastic or glass lid.
Step 2: Infuse
- Place the jar in a cool place away from direct sunlight and allow it to infuse a minimum of three weeks, but I let it sit at least 8 weeks. Then strain.
- Store in a jar or swing top glass bottle. Label.
- Shelf life is basically indefinite because it’s vinegar.
