We grow two edible weeds in our garden – chickweed in the cooler months, and purslane (photo below) in summer.
Of these, my favourite is the purslane, with its juicy succulent leaves and slightly sour tang. According to Wiki, it contains more omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable, and is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine…
Over December, when we ran out of cos lettuces in the garden, this salad became our festive season side dish. The purslane was (and still is) growing prolifically, and we added new season cucumbers and a few garden tomatoes to the mix.
This traditional recipe comes from Abla’s Lebanese Kitchen, and we changed it only slightly to allow the Spanish onions to marinate in the dressing before assembly…
- 1 clove garlic
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon ground sumac
- 50ml (2½ tablespoons) lemon juice, or to taste
- 40ml (2 tablespoons) extra virgin olive oil
- 1 small or ½ large Spanish onion, finely sliced
- 5 cups purslane, leaves and stems, washed and torn (see note)
- 3 large tomatoes, or a handful of cherry tomatoes
- 2 Lebanese cucumbers
Note: try to pick young purslane with fat juicy leaves, and use all of it – the stems are delicious when young. If you’ve only got slightly older purslane, pick off the smaller branches and leaves, and discard the thick stem.
1. Crush the garlic and salt together. Abla recommends using a mortar and pestle, but we used our twisty garlic crusher, which worked brilliantly. Crushing the garlic with the salt results in a liquid paste…
2. In a medium sized bowl, combine the crushed garlic and salt with the lemon juice, oil and sumac. Stir in the sliced onion and allow it to marinate while you prepare the other ingredients (this helps to mellow the flavour of the raw onion and can be done ahead of time).
3. Wash the purslane and snap it into bite-sized pieces. The entire plant is edible, although older stems can be a bit tough. Cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise, then slice them into half-moons. Dice tomatoes (if large) or cut cherry tomatoes in half.
4. Just before serving, put the purslane, tomato and cucumber into a large salad bowl. Pour over the onion and dressing, and mix gently to combine.
This refreshing salad was a huge hit with everyone who tried it, and three of our friends have already asked for purslane seeds for their backyards.
Do you grow any edible weeds in your garden? And if so, how do you prepare them?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
No actual edible weeds, but the garlic chives grow like weeds!! In a slightly cooler summer I have grown water cress which is very unusual for Alice Springs, but this summer it has not thrived, too hot. The purslane sounds delicious and the salad looks beautiful.
Ardys, garlic chives are wonderful, aren’t they? We have a small patch of them by the wall. Watercress is fabulous – we don’t grow it, and on the odd occasion when we see it for sale, it costs a fortune! Good on you for being able to grow it at home!
Plenty of weeds here but probably all toxic. I love the look of your purslane salad. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten purslane but I should – it sounds like it’s super-good for you xx
Pete is the good weed identifier, I must admit I’m a bit rubbish at it. I’m better at chickweed and purslane simply because we eat it, but I need to work harder at it. I think the purslane is supposed to be very good for us – I know it’s a long established bush tucker plant as well.
That salad does look refreshing! I had some wild purslane invade my herb garden this year- what an unexpected treat. You’re right about eating the leaves when they’re young. I had a salad once where they included the older woody stems. I think I might have ate it anyways! ;)
Em, the stems do seem to toughen up a bit when the plant sets seed, but when it’s young, the whole plant is delicious. I’ve never heard of wild purslane, is it the same variety as the one we’re growing?
Hi Celia! I’m not an expert, but from the looks of your pictures it seems like it is the same variety. Hopefully it’s not like mint and won’t take over the whole garden ;)
Em, if it looks like purslane, it won’t be mint! :) Purslane is actually a succulent, I think..
It seems to me, though this is a terribly catholic thing to say, the more bitter a leaf the better it is for you, i might order some purslane seeds this year, I don’t think anything will have survived this winter.. c
Celi, the purslane isn’t bitter, it’s delicious and tangy and lemony! It grows..ahem..like a weed, so if you do plant it, be prepared for lots of it to grow. :) Btw, the Chinese agree with you on the bitter veg – we eat bittergourd, which is so bitter it makes my face scrunch up, but it’s supposed to be very good for us!
I have much trouble growing some vegetables her that some thing that grows like a weed would be more than welcome! c
I have plenty of purslane and chick weed in my garden in the summer- but Frank will hardly eat legitimate vegetables. I made a salad with dandelion weeds and he flatly refused to even try and when I sauteed some fiddlehead fern fronds he absolutely called me crazy.
Heidi, maybe you could make this salad just for yourself? I think you might like the flavour. Or make fattoush salad, it’s divine.. :)
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2011/04/03/lebanese-bread-crackers-and-fattoush-salad/
Hi Celia… this salad sounds delicious. We don’t grow any edible weeds in our garden. Actually, with a week or more of 40+ after we got home from Sydney, and now another in the high 30s, everything is suffering in our patch! : (
Liz, I’m sorry to hear that! It’s warming up here in Sydney too.. xx
i was only looking at my purslane this morning celia and thinking about making a salad with it tonight..my main weed staples are nettles in winter, dandelion in spring and purslane in summer..x
Jane, I hear so much about nettles, but I don’t think I’d recognise one if I stepped on it! What do you do with your dandelion, we seem to grow a lot of that, but we just give it all to the chooks… xx
Hi Celia, we look forward to our purslane growing and make sure the household which has abundance of it shares it round to others to get the full benefit of our Omega 3″s. You’ll find that if you toast Lebanese bread (or Pita) and crumble it on top just before demolishing, it’s the same as Fattoush! mmmm. thanks for sharing. God bless your garden!
Lina, thank you! I didn’t even think of eating purslane (it’s been growing as a weed for ages in our garden) until Barbara at Harkola suggested it for fattoush. Now I don’t know where we’d be without it! I hope your garden grows heaps of it for you! :)
Where did you get your seeds from, Celia?
If you remember… I have no idea where I originally got the seeds from for my self-sowing edible weed, that being leaf amaranth.
Jacqueline, I asked Pete if he could remember (I can’t), and he said it’s always been in our garden, we just taught it to grow in the beds. We have heaps of seed – let me know if you can’t find any and I’ll stick some in an envelope and mail it to you.
Growing ‘edible things’ all in pots one does not wait for ‘weeds’ to grow!! This salad would taste good with any green but all the many food bloggers loving purslane makes me want to try it, even in some corner of the garden, for the then season to come :) !
Eha, purslane grows everywhere in our garden, in cracks in the brick pavers, anywhere it can find a little bit of ground. :)
Hi C
Can I come over and get a cutting?…it looks fabulous!
Wend, it grows best from seed, come over and get some. xx
The salad looks very pretty and delicious. I have so much self sown chickweed invading my garden I could feed a town! Lol!
Manuela, have you ever cooked the chickweed? We’ve only ever eaten it raw, but I was wondering if it would cook up at all…
My parents love purslane. Mum used to have it always back in Greece. She has a recipe where it’s also pickled. Will pass it on when I get it off her. Also, add it to a Greek salad with feta is scrumptious. :)
Pickled purslane sounds wonderful! And adding feta is a fabulous idea, thank you! :)
Fresh salads are a delight aren’t they, no matter the season they just hit the right spot! I’ll fess up to hoeing my chickweed down to the ground – too lazy to pick and take it from the allotment to home :)
Claire, I never have a problem with giving stuff to the chooks and digging it in – I figure it’s not going to waste that way! Purslane is easier to harvest than chickweed! :)
Reading about your use of purslane in previous posts had already convinced me to add purslane to my seed list for this year Celia. Very keen to have a ready supply in Middle Eastern dishes. If it grows like a weed, presumably it grows easily from seed? Can’t wait to grow it and try this lovely salad.
Andrea, it grows ridiculously easily from seed! We literally just sprinkle it over the ground, and up it comes. It produces tiny seeds. Hope you have as much fun with it as we have – we eat it in this salad, but also on sandwiches, in curries and in stir fries!
Food for free and no cultivating. Excellent. Stinging nettles and Jack-by-the-Hedge (garlic mustard) are my favourite edible weeds in the garden, mainly because they’re the most plentiful.
Garlic mustard! I’ve never heard of that. I think I’d love anything called Jack-by-the-Hedge! :)
Lovely looking salad and gorgeous bowl … i feel a late, second wind salad eating frenzy coming on.
My car said it was over 30C today, so salad is definitely still the order of the day! I wonder if we’re going to get a late hot summer?
I love this easy peasy purslane salad too! Yummm! x
Sophie, it’s a delicious free veg! :) xx
My father thinks so too & healthy too! x
Sadly, I only have the good old fashioned non/in edible weeds in our garden. I love the sound of purslane and as lovely as the salad looks, I LOVE your bowl.
Have a super day Celia.
:-) Mandy xo
Mandy, it’s Turkish and I adore it. I have a small collection of them, and I decided this year I had to stop saving them and start using them all the time! :) Have a great weekend, love xx
Hi Celia. I love the idea of eating weeds. I think I have purslane growing but I am not sure so I haven’t eaten it. We have dandelion galore in spring but I have never tried that either. I found a cherry tomato the other day down in the paddock with about 5 cherry tomatoes on it. That was exciting.
Glenda, our entire garden (almost) is growing wild at the moment! But the purslane has been there forever, even before we had a garden. We did plant the chickweed though. I’m glad you found the self-sown tomatoes exciting and not terrifying!! :)
No edible weeds in my summer garden. I think I could make a similar salad using watercress.
Karen, I ADORE watercress, but it’s so hard to buy here! I think it would well in place of the purslane!
I love purslane. Last time i brought some from your place Stefano Manfredi scoffed at me. “oh that weed grows everywhere”. I think that’s great . A ready to harvest food that makes a delightful salad like you have here!
Surely not scoffing..maybe I’ll have to complain to him on Twitter about it! :) There’s plenty more here if you’d like some.. xx
This does look refreshing Celia, and I really like a tang in salad to wake it up a bit. I don’t have any ‘real’ weeds in my garden but plenty of self seeded bits and pieces that I consider weeds if they don’t grow where I want them :) xox
Becca, that’s true – any plant that doesn’t grow where you want it to is a weed, right? :) Hope your garden has survived the heat! xx
Only just Celia, some plants have become quite sun burnt and my pumpkin has shriveled up completely :( xox
I am going to have to look into this purslane. First it looks like it makes a great salad and second, the fact that you’ve classified it as a weed makes me think that I could actually grow it. I’d never heard of this before although I’ve heard of chickweed which I think was also used back during WWII, dried and ground and added to coffee to stretch it and as a substitute for tea.
Diane, I’ve never heard of chickweed being used like that! How interesting! I’m going to have to do some research, thank you!!
I think I recall my parents complaining that adding it to the coffee made it very bitter – but it was a long time ago & sadly, with age the memory sometimes fades. Lots of other things too now that I think of it :)
Are you sure it was chickweed and not chicory? Chicory is a weed with blue flowers that grows in wasteland conditions and it roasted and added to coffee after it was lightly roasted. The trick was not to add too much or roast too darkly.
I’ve only read about purslane, but never seen it or eaten it. :-) I can’t wait to find some soon.
I’ve now seen it at the markets a few times if you don’t have it in your garden! :)
I love reading about new leaves from the garden that are edible :)
Tandy, this one really is delicious – I just wish more grew in the garden and less on the driveway! :D
Hi Celia, looks so healthy. As I don’t have a garden I’m going to have to take a close look at my parents and see what I can find :) Happy Chinese New Year !
Yes, I eat weeds! My favourite is lamb’s quarters in salad or quiche. I have a question about the purslane. Does the texture of it bother you at all?
I love the texture! I find myself snacking on it during the day – it stays crunchy for a couple of days in a jug of water. I’ve never tried lamb’s quarters, I’ll look out for it, thanks! :)
Agh, if only we had a balcony so I can try growing purslane. I have such an anti-green thumb (killed cactus once, I kid you not) that a weed may be the only thing that can survive my care. :-P
It’s much easier to grow things in the ground than in pots, and cacti are actually surprisingly fragile, so don’t be hard on yourself! :)
It purslane the same as valeria? In Italy we call it valeriana and in Germany it is lambs lettuce or winter lettuce. I love it and use it all the time there.
Deb, I don’t think so – the Wiki article says:
Portulaca oleracea (common purslane, also known as verdolaga, pigweed, little hogweed, or pursley, and moss rose)
Lamb’s lettuce is Valerianella locusta, according to Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambs_lettuce
They look a bit similar, but I think the purslane leaves might be a bit fatter.
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten purslane but those fat little leaves are calling my name.
[…] and purslane (lured by all those tasty, home-grown Middle Eastern salads in Celia’s lovely Fig Jam & Lime Cordial posts. Purslane may add an interesting note to salads like this […]