Foraging Wild Chive

I've known about wild chive since I was a kid, but I didn't know what it was called or that it was edible. It always grew taller than the rest of the grass, and it always smelled like onions when I picked it.

Once I got into foraging, though, I learned that the plants I picked as a kid were wild chive, an edible plant very similar to the commercial variety. Wild chive is a bit thinner, but the flavor is amazing. The entire plant is edible, so you can chop up the tops and cook the bulbs as well.

Now that grocery stores are a bit hectic and the availability of fresh produce isn't guaranteed, I've started regularly using wild chive in our meals. Not only does this save money and prevent exposure, wild chive is DELICIOUS. I don't think I'll ever buy chives from a grocery store again!

Before it went out of season, I wanted to make sure to dry enough to jar up for the rest of the year; anything else in my yard will either be left to seed or will be used fresh as needed. In this post, I'll show you how to harvest chive, use it fresh, and dehydrate it for future use.

Harvesting Chive

Wild chive will start popping up early in the spring with tops that are round, hollow, and darker in color than the grass around it.

Wild chive in Mid-March, still very thin

Chive in early April, almost as thick as its commercial counterpart

There aren't many lookalikes to chive, but the easiest way to know that you've found chive is picking the tops and taking a whiff; chive tops will smell like onions. If it doesn't smell like onions, you don't have chives. 

As they grow over the season, the tops will look more and more like what you'd buy in stores:

Close up of chive in early April

You can use regular scissors to cut off the tops, and pulling up the bulbs takes little effort.

My main goal was to gather tops to dehydrate for later use, but I pulled up a few of the larger bulbs to use in dinner.

Not a bad haul considering I didn't leave my yard!

Using Chives

Once I got back in the house, I cleaned the tops and bulbs. I also cut out/removed any tops that were wilted, brown, or dried out. All of those scraps went into my compost; nothing wasted!

All clean!

Many of the tops were too long to fit into my dehydrator, so I chopped them in half. I had enough tops for four tiers, making sure to leave enough space for them to dry evenly.

If you don't have a dehydrator, you can still preserve them! This link from DehydratorLab will show you other drying methods. You can also chop them and freeze them with water or olive oil in ice cube trays, make chive butter, or vacuum-seal the tops and freeze them. You can learn more about other preservation methods for chives from The Kitchn.

Stacked in the dehydrator

Oh noes...the chives are in the evil clutches of....DEHYDRO!

Once that was done, it was time to cook dinner. I sliced up all of the bulbs as well as any tops that didn't make it into the dehydrator.

Tops and bulbs...Deadpool approved!

From there, I added the bulbs and tops into a pan of butter and potatoes and fried it all up together, adding a little salt and garlic powder. We've also used them with pierogies and in mashed potatoes.

So. Delicious.

Meanwhile, back in DEHYDRO headquarters...

I let the tops dehydrate overnight. You can tell when the tops are ready when they easily snap apart. If they bend at all, they aren't done yet.

One of the dried tops

Pile of dried chives

They're too delicate to chop on a board when they're dried out; I tried once in my first batch, and they flew everywhere. To stop them from flying all over, I placed them on a paper towel, put another paper towel on top, and lightly crushed them until they were in pieces small enough to put them in my little food processor (I got it for around $5 at Walmart several year ago, and it was worth every penny).

Chives after being crushed up

Get in the choppah!!

I ran the processor until the chives were chopped up. Use them like you would commercial dried chives. I ended up filling most of an 8oz mason jar, which was my goal. From here, the jar goes into the spice cabinet and will be used like commercially dried chives.

Ready for the spice cabinet!

Here's a recipe I've used the dried chives in recently, and it worked out very well (especially on salmon and fried potatoes):

Want to learn even more about wild chive? Check out Penn Live and Eat the Weeds for more info!

**Please make sure you are 100% certain that you have accurately identified a plant before consuming it in any way. Do not forage plants in areas that have been sprayed with chemicals.**