A List Of The Most Common Wild Edible Plants You Can Actually Find…
Knowing a few common wild edible plants and flowers is extremely valuable when in survival mode. Heck, most of these might even make it into your kitchen regularly. But if fate hands you a raw deal, look for these best wild edible plants to help sustain.
TOPICS IN THIS LIST… ↓(click to jump)
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The 13 Best Wild Edible Plants
1. Dandelions
We are all familiar with this common lawn weed, but few people realize that this plant can be eaten from top to bottom. Pull the yellow flower from the plant and eat it raw.
Leaves and roots can also be eaten, but leaves taste their best when the plant is young. Older leaves can have more of a bitter taste. Leaves and roots taste better after being boiled.
My grandmother would boil young dandelions and put them in the refrigerator to cool off. After cooling, she added olive oil, vinegar, oregano, and pepper. For a picky kid, they weren’t bad at all.
If I were in the middle of nowhere, I’d boil them, eat them, and thank God I found them.
↓ The Best Way To Eat Dandelion Flowers
2. Cattails
We tried cattails in Boy Scouts. They were a staple for Native Americans.
The tips and the white-colored bottoms of the stalks are edible, raw, and palatable. But be careful not to eat the fiber as it may cause a stomach ache.
They’re one of the best wild edible plants that provide an excellent starch source.
You can also mix Cattail pollen with flour and egg to make cattail pancakes. Try gathering the pollen from the top of this plant in late June and early July.
You’ll know you’ve hit the pollen when your hands turn yellow.
↓ Harvesting and Cooking the Cattail Root
3. Wild Asparagus
Asparagus is one of the best wild edible plants widely found across North America. If you find it in your life, you’ll probably find it in or around the same location for the rest of your life.
This wild edible plant is hardy. Look for old dead stalks about three feet high. Near those, new young stalks can be found.
Wild asparagus doesn’t like soil that’s too moist. It can usually be found along ditch banks or next to railroad tracks. When we were kids, we picked it along the tracks when we were pheasant hunting.
At least we came home with something! You can usually find wild asparagus if you live where summers are dry.
Wild asparagus stalks are usually thinner than those you see at the supermarket. If you cut a stalk as close to the ground as possible, a new stalk will grow back. Eat wild asparagus by boiling, or steaming.
↓ Foraging for Wild Asparagus!
4. Milk Thistle
Another wild edible plant found across North America is the milk thistle. This is the plant with the purple flower-like top we see along some highways. Remove the spines from the leaves, and the leaves can be eaten with other greens.
Boil the stalks. Or boil/bake the plant’s roots.
↓ How To Harvest, Prepare, and EAT Wild Thistle!
5. Clover
Everybody knows clover, which falls within the wild edible plant group. Clover is everywhere in the United States and is very high in protein. Raw clover can cause problems with digestion, but it can be made into a juice form.
Flour can also be made from dried clover flowers and seed pods. Tea can also be made from clover and steeped in water. Everybody needs a little luck to get out of a survival situation, so try not to eat the four-leaf ones.
↓ Wild Edibles: Clover (Free Food In Your Lawn)
6. Wild Onions
Eat it if it looks like an onion and smells like an onion. Don’t eat it if it looks like an onion but doesn’t smell like one. It could be dangerous.
The same rule applies to garlic.
Wild onions grow in damp places, especially on the forest floor. All wild onion plants can be eaten from top to bottom. It can be eaten raw, cooked, or with other greens.
↓ WILD ONIONS (Catch, Clean, and Cook)
7. Bamboo
Classified as grass, bamboo is one of the wild edible plants found in certain parts of the United States. The fiber content in bamboo is very high. Shoots should be cut when very young and under a foot tall.
Bamboo cannot be eaten raw. Peel the outer leaves.
Remove any tough parts of the shoots. Cut them into 1/8″ slices and boil them uncovered for at least 20 minutes or longer to rid them of bitterness. They can then be eaten alone or with other greens.
Bamboo shoots are high in fiber, protein, and potassium. Dry bamboo also makes excellent kindling for a fire if caught in a survival situation.
↓ Harvesting & Prepping Bamboo To Eat!!
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This is a common weed we’ve seen before, but no one can pronounce the name. It grows near the ground, resembles shady areas, and resembles a miniature jade plant. We’d see it growing in sidewalk cracks going to and from school.
It’s one of the most nutritional edible weeds with high Omega-3 fatty acids and beta-carotene.
Eat raw or cook purslane. It’s making its way onto restaurant menus, so it’s good enough for a restaurant. So it’s good enough for somebody in the middle of nowhere with few nutritional choices.
Wherever you find purslane, it will be around for a long time. Its seeds have been viable in the soil for well over 30 years. Like asparagus, once it’s there, it will always be there.
↓ My Favorite Weed to Forage & Eat – Purslane! It Grows Everywhere!
9. Violets
Violets are wild edible plants high in vitamins A and C. Boil their leaves or dry them make tea. The flowers can be eaten raw.
Be sure not to eat the roots or stems and avoid African Violets. Violets have also been used medicinally.
A common headache cure is to soak violet on a towel and apply to the back of the neck.
↓ How to Eat Violets
10. Day-lily
The daylilies have a long history in China as edible flowers and medicine. You can sauté or stir fry young daylily leaves.
Don’t damage the flower stalks when cutting the leaves because the daylily can be cut again when the buds and blossoms are present. Boil or stir fry the buds.
Partially or fully opened daylily flowers can be battered with flour and water and fried. The roots of the daylily are also edible, either raw or boiled.
They pack high nutrition in the late fall after storing vitamins and minerals from the summer season.
↓ How to Eat Daylilies | Wild Foraging IN YOUR YARD
11. Berries
My favorite wild edible plant is berries, which grow everywhere in northern North America. Wild blueberries and blackberries grow in cool and high climates. Almost all dark-colored berries can be safely eaten in the wilderness. Both blueberries and blackberries are full of Vitamin C and rich in fiber.
White, yellow, and red berries can kill. Stay away from them unless you are certain, especially in a survival situation. Although grapes are not necessarily berries, I don’t know of a single type of grape that can’t be eaten.
If the birds have eaten all the grapes, pick the smaller grape leaves and dry them for a few days. And then boil them for about 20 minutes.
Wrap any meat in the leaves. If there’s no meat, eat the grape leaves by themselves.
I’ve eaten at least 10,000 of them and never got sick. Although they have relatively low caloric value, they’re rich in vitamins and fiber. I’d even eat them raw after washing them if I had to.
↓ Wild Edible Berries – Foraging for Berries
12. Acorns
Most people don’t realize that acorns are edible. Of course, they are not raw, but if you take the time to process them, you can turn them into acorn flour. Use this flour to bake just like wheat flour.
It has a unique taste, and the properties will make baking slightly different. However, you should try a wild edible plant as a last resort food source or as a way to use what nature provides.
↓ How to make acorns edible
13. Wild Lettuce (Lactuca Canadensis)
Ok… this ones not edible, but it’s a great find for medicinal purposes.
Wild lettuce makes wild lettuce extract. This extract has many medical benefits. So it’s worth finding, foraging, and harvesting if you come across any of it!
↓ Forage And Eat Wild Lettuce (Lactuca Canadensis)
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Always be sure of what you’re going to eat. Some plants might look like one of these best wild edible plants, but instead, they can sicken or kill you. One suggestion is to eat only a small portion of a plant and then wait an hour to see how your body reacts.
Beware of plants closer to civilization or roadways, as they may have dangerous chemicals. If a plant smells like almonds, never eat it. That’s the smell of cyanide.
Prepare, Adapt & Overcome,
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