Fresh dandelion flower tea

Dandelion is much more than just a weed growing in the yard. In fact, it has been cultivated for its culinary and medicinal benefits for centuries! This refreshing fresh dandelion flower tea recipe will be your new favorite way to enjoy the benefits of nutritious dandelions.

You can enjoy dandelions in your salad, make vegan honey from it's flowers, use them in an oil for your homemade salves, enjoy dandelion lemonade, or dandelion iced tea. You can even use it in homemade herbal bone broth.

Dandelion is a good source of: 

• Beta-carotene
• Magnesium
• Calcium
• Iron
• Zinc
• Vitamin A

Dandelion is also an excellent source of Vitamin A. 

Ingredients:

• 8 cups of water
• 1 cup dandelion flowers
• 2 lemon slices 
• ½ vanilla bean, split in half
• 1 cup of honey, try out dandelion honey or flower infused honey

You can also add a floral sugar cubes for extra sweetness and cuteness!

How to make it:

• Boil your water
• Add in your dandelion flowers, lemon slices, vanilla bean and honey and let steep for an hour. Dandelion gives it's most benefits when it's allowed to steep in hot water
• Strain solid ingredients, reserving only tea water
• Heat in small sauce pan or in microwave when you're ready for a cup!

how to harvest dandelions for your tea:

Dandelions are easily identifiable and abundant. They’re notoriously easy to harvest and simple to clean and use. The entire plant is edible from flowers, leaves, to root.

I recommend you harvest the entire plant, even if you plan to just use the flowers for tea. You can use the greens in this Arugula and dandelion greens salad with dandelion root lemon vinaigrette and use the roots in this herbal bone broth.

I like the harvest my dandelions from my own garden.  We’re lucky to have a garden where they grow abundantly, without fertilizer, however we also don’t have pets. Make sure you’ve located a safe space that’s free of fertilizer and that is not visited by dogs.

To harvest the entire plant from root, use a weeding fork. I have and can recommend this one. Angel the fork about an inch into the soil to loosen the root, and then carefully pull the entire plant from the ground. Shake free from dirt and remove any damp or slimy leaves.

Ideally, you would harvest dandelion while it’s still young, as it becomes extremely bitter after it becomes older.

cleaning dandelions for consumption:

Run dandelion crowns and green through water, while carefully opening their crowns to be sure you’ve removed any dirt and pests.

If you’re using fresh dandelion root, peel the “skin” as if it were a carrot, and clean it well. Then you can slice it exactly like you would a carrot. Give it a try!

love edible flowers? these resources may be useful to you:

• Ways to use edible flowers
• Popular edible flowers chart and their meaning - printable chart
• How to store and preserve edible flowers
• Edible flowers to grow in your garden
• Where to buy or find edible flowers for cookies and cakes