Lamb’s quarters, also known as white goosefoot, is a common edible weed, just as widespread as dandelion. I never thought it was edible until my 80-year-old grandmother told me how lamb’s quarters helped feed children during the post-war famine.
Today, expensive dietary supplements are made from ground lamb’s quarters leaves in gelatin capsules. While we have the opportunity to eat fresh lamb’s quarters for free, the advantage of the capsule form is that the raw material is purified of oxalic acid, which can accumulate in joints and cause gout and also affect kidney function. However, oxalic acid can be neutralized with lemon juice or through cooking.
As always, it’s challenging to keep my narrative consistent when I’m excited. Let me try to fix that. So, white goosefoot, or lamb’s quarters, is a well-known weed globally. It’s recognizable in gardens, fields, yards, and vegetable patches. Lamb’s quarters belong to the same family as beets, spinach, and chard. It was consumed by indigenous peoples in North and South America before and after the Ice Age and is still eaten in Japan, Africa, Europe, and America—it’s the most cosmopolitan weed in the world. It lost its reputation only because it became a great feed for livestock, and serving a salad with lamb’s quarters became out of fashion.
Lamb’s quarters are much more nutritious than spinach in all respects: it contains more protein, iron, vitamin B1, calcium, phosphorus, as well as essential minerals and acids. In defense of this weed as a garden plant, I should note that lamb’s quarters do not interfere with the growth and development of cultivated plants. The plant will provide greenery until the first frost.
How to Prepare Lamb’s Quarters?
If you eat lamb’s quarters with other vegetables and dress the salad with lemon juice, the oxalates in it won’t cause you any trouble. You can eat both the leaves and stems. Any recipe with spinach can be made with lamb’s quarters. You can lightly steam its greens or eat them raw in salads.
Baked Egg and Lamb’s Quarters
- Half a bunch of lamb’s quarters
- A small onion
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 1 tablespoon of vinegar
- 2 tablespoons of grated cheese
- Salt and pepper
We’ll cook this in the oven, but I’ve also tried it on the stove with a lid. Wash the greens, chop the onion, and sauté it. Add a bit of vinegar, a tablespoon of water, and the lamb’s quarters leaves. Cook the leaves for a couple of minutes.
Transfer the greens to a baking dish, crack 2 eggs over them, sprinkle with cheese, and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Lamb’s Quarters Pesto
- A bunch of lamb’s quarters
- Grated cheese, about 1/3 cup (preferably aged)
- 1/3 cup of walnuts (or pine nuts, if available)
- Just under 1/2 cup of olive oil
- 2-3 cloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
- Salt and pepper
Place all the ingredients in a food processor, blend thoroughly, and store in a jar in the refrigerator.
I particularly enjoyed adding lamb’s quarters to stewed cabbage towards the end of cooking, along with garlic. It also pairs well with meatballs and pie fillings.
