Chickweed - A nutritious edible weed

Fun facts and recipes, all about the dainty chickweed.

Chickweed is a beautiful, delicate, and tasty herb. It's less visible during the hottest months of the year, but it's a treat when it's around. One of my very favorite salad greens.

Chickweed - Stellaria media

The binomial name for chickweed is Stellaria media. Stellaria is from the Latin stella which means "star", referring to the star-shaped flower. Media means "middle" and distinguishes chickweed for smaller and larger relatives.

Chickweed is Eurasian in origin and was brought to the New World by European settlers. The English name "chickweed" refers to the fact that chickens and other birds like to eat it.

NOTE: There are several other plants that have been nicknamed "chickweed", but the term most commonly refers to our friend Stellaria media.

Chickweed likes to grow in dense, tangled mats low to the ground. It has pointed oval leaves that grow in pairs along the stem.

A very cute characteristic of chickweed is a line of fine hairs that will be present on only one side of the stem. You'll see the line of hairs going up one side of the stem until it reaches a node (where the leaves branch off), then the line of hairs will switch to the opposite side of the stem.

When broken, the chickweed stem does not exude any sap. If you have something with white sap in the stem, it's not chickweed.

Chickweed has a white flower with five petals, but each petals is so deeply notched that it looks like there are ten petals instead of five.

Chickweed is high in vitamin C, vitamin A, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, magnesium, iron, calcium, potassium, zinc, phosphorus, manganese, sodium, selenium, and silicon.

Good for salads and more

The leaves, stems, flowers, and seeds of chickweed are all edible. It has a very inviting flavor, mild and very green. It tastes like spring. Some people compare the flavor to cornsilk. It's a wonderful one to balance out some of the bitter greens you might have in your salad.

Most people agree with me that the very best way to eat chickweed is raw. It's a delicate plant that much more suited for dropping into a salad that putting in a pot of boiling water. But it can be used in soup, and it is sometimes stir-fried.

Here a few recipes:

• A set of chickweed recipes, including three types of salad and one salad dressing recipe

• Steamed chickweed

• Chickweed pesto

• Smoked salmon with chickweed chimichurri

So far I have only found one mythological reference to chickweed.

The Ainu people are an indigenous tribe located in a part of Japan. According to Ainu mythology, the first humans had bodies made of earth, hair made of chickweed, and spines made of willow sticks. (Source: New World Encyclopedia)

I think of chickweed as a nutritional food, but it also has popularity as a medicinal herb.

It is often used as a remedy to promote wound healing. It's frequently made into ointments and salves for topical use.

Chickweed is also mildly diuretic and considered cleansing to the urinary tract.