Support for LAist comes from
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Stay Connected
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Listen

Share This

This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.

This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

Food

Seasonal Eats: The Lemony Leaf Called Sorrel

With our free press under threat and federal funding for public media gone, your support matters more than ever. Help keep the LAist newsroom strong, become a monthly member or increase your support today during our fall member drive. 

Something you might find at your Farmer's Market herb seller's tables this spring is sorrel, a perennial pot herb sharing the texture of spinach, the size of young chard, and having a tart, sour lemon flavor. Similar to chard, the stems are crunchy and rigid compared to the leaves, so you may want to destem the leaves for use in salad, and save the stems for a sauté or a smoothie. Here's a great list of starting points for using sorrel (definitely try the strawberry sorrel smoothie).

Sorrel is a very nutritious addition to your diet, offering dietary fiber, protein vitamin C and vitamin A, iron and calcium. Like spinach, sorrel has a high oxalate content, which binds to both the iron and calcium, preventing absorption by the body, so these leafy greens should not be relied upon as a main source for either mineral. (But if you have issues with kidney stones, your body isn't efficiently breaking up the salts left behind by the oxalic acid, so you might want to skip out on sorrel.)

6 ways to serve sorrel:

Blend up chopped sorrel into a pesto with basil and walnuts: sorrel walnut pesto

Support for LAist comes from

Make sorrel just one of a medly of raw, tangy flavors in this salad of bitter greens and oranges

Add bright tartness to a tasty sorrel frittata

Sauté it up and throw in some grated gruyère: sorrel onion tart

Complement the flavor and cut the tartness with a creamy sorrel sauce: pecan-crusted salmon with sorrel sauce

Last but not least, the hearty soup that made it famous: french sorrel soup

At LAist, we believe in journalism without censorship and the right of a free press to speak truth to those in power. Our hard-hitting watchdog reporting on local government, climate, and the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis is trustworthy, independent and freely accessible to everyone thanks to the support of readers like you.

But the game has changed: Congress voted to eliminate funding for public media across the country. Here at LAist that means a loss of $1.7 million in our budget every year. We want to assure you that despite growing threats to free press and free speech, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust. Speaking frankly, the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news in our community.

We’re asking you to stand up for independent reporting that will not be silenced. With more individuals like you supporting this public service, we can continue to provide essential coverage for Southern Californians that you can’t find anywhere else. Become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission.

Thank you for your generous support and belief in the value of independent news.

Chip in now to fund your local journalism
A row of graphics payment types: Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay and PayPal, and  below a lock with Secure Payment text to the right
(
LAist
)

Trending on LAist