Drying wild garlic in 3 steps + 4 tips

Before drying: Harvest wild garlic

The best time to harvest is between March and May, when the leaves are particularly tender and most aromatic. As soon as flowering begins, there are clear differences in quality. Incidentally, the flowers of wild garlic are also edible, and even the bulbs if you dig them up in autumn.

Prepare for drying

When collecting or harvesting wild garlic, also known as wild garlic or garlic spinach, the location plays an important role. Does it come from your own garden or was it collected from the wild? In the garden, this is usually not a problem, in contrast to wild herbs collected in the wild.

With the latter, there is a risk that the wild garlic leaves are contaminated with the pathogen of the so-called fox tapeworm. For this reason, it is important to wash wild garlic, especially wild garlic, thoroughly before drying. It is best to wash it off several times with warm water. Then pat the leaves dry with a kitchen towel or let them dry at room temperature.

Air dry

• tie the washed and dried leaves into small bouquets
• hang upside down at a sufficient distance
• Drying place should be warm, dry and dark
• must always be well ventilated
• not too many leaves per posy
• otherwise adequate ventilation of each individual leaf cannot be guaranteed
• there is a risk of rot and mold growth
• Excessive humidity can also cause mold

To avoid moisture and mold formation, it is advisable to gently shake the bundles from time to time during the drying process. In addition, the leaves should be checked regularly for rotten or moldy spots and removed immediately if there are any. Now the leaves remain hanging until they are completely dry. You can tell if they are dry by a rustling noise when touched and by the fact that you can crumble them with your fingers. The stems can easily be broken off.

Dry in the oven

Another drying method is in the oven. Again, the leaves should be washed and dried beforehand. This method is straightforward but takes several hours.

• First, preheat the oven to 40 degrees
• Line the baking sheet with parchment paper
• remove the hard stalks from wild garlic leaves
• then spread evenly on the baking sheet
• Leaves should not touch each other if possible
• Put the sheet with the leaves in the oven
• Leave the oven door ajar
• Clamp a wooden spoon or something similar in between
• Moisture must be able to escape
• The drying process takes several hours
• Check the degree of drying regularly

Dry the wild garlic in the dehydrator

The leaves are also destemmed during drying in the dehydrator. Then you cut them into strips or small pieces and distribute the cuttings on the drying sieves of the dehydrator. You then set this to a maximum of 40 degrees and check at relatively short intervals how far the drying process has progressed.

Storage tips

Once the wild garlic (Allium ursinum) has dried and cooled down, it is important to store it properly. In order to have some of the weed for as long as possible, it should be stored airtight and protected from light. This can be done, for example, in closable cans or jars with screw caps. If you want to store it in a space-saving way, you can grind it finely and put it in small spice jars as a spice.

Beware of confusion

In the case of plants collected in the wild in particular, there is a high risk of confusion with poisonous plants . Wild garlic leaves are easily confused with the leaves of the lily of the valley and those of the autumn crocus, both of which are highly toxic. You should therefore take a very close look at wild garlic collected in the wild.

The most important and most striking distinguishing feature is the strong garlic smell that wild garlic gives off when rubbed between your fingers. In addition, each leaf of wild garlic has a stalk. The lily of the valley forms two leaves on a stem that enclose it. Autumn crocuses differ from wild garlic in that they only form their flowers in autumn and the leaves only in spring.