100 Sorrel Recipes - A Flavorful Healthy Herb Useful in Many Meals (2024)

FAQs

What is the herb sorrel used for? ›

It has a sour, lemon-like flavor and is often featured in dishes like soups, stews, and curries. It's also used medicinally, as it's touted to promote healthy digestion, decrease inflammation, and treat mouth ulcers. The two most commonly grown types are known as French and common sorrel.

Cooking With Sorrel

Sorrel falls straight between herbs and greens. Use it as a leafy herb, like parsley or basil or mint, chopping it up to use in marinades and dressings, or stirring it into soups or casseroles for a bit of fresh flavor. Or, use it as a green, ripping the tender leaves into salads and stir-fries.

What is sorrel? Sorrel is a herb with a sharp, lemony flavour. Highly regarded in France, where the leaves are used in soups and sauces, sorrel can also be served with fish and egg dishes. Only the younger leaves, available in the springtime, should be used in salads.

Highlight it's lemony flavor by pairing it with fish or shellfish, like this salmon with sorrel sauce. The historic sorrel-based “greensauce” was commonly paired with veal. But probably the most common way to cook sorrel, across many different cultures, is in soup.

Pregnancy and breast-feeding: Wood sorrel is UNSAFE for both mothers and infants. Avoid use. Blood-clotting (coagulation) problems: Chemicals in wood sorrel can make blood clot too fast. Stomach or intestinal disorders: Wood sorrel can irritate the lining of the stomach and intestines and might make ulcers worse.

Sorrel might slow blood clotting. Taking sorrel along with medications that also slow blood clotting might increase the risk of bruising and bleeding.

Sorrel (Rumex acetosa), also called common sorrel or garden sorrel, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the family Polygonaceae. Other names for sorrel include spinach dock and narrow-leaved dock ('dock' being a common name for the genus Rumex).

A. The recommended dosage of sorrel is around ½ cup of sorrel leaves, which provides about half of your daily vitamin C and vitamin A needs. It is also rich in potassium and magnesium.

The fresh or dried leaves are considered astringent, diuretic (increasing urination), laxative (softening the bowel), and cooling. Juice of the leaf has also been applied topically for the treatment of itchy skin and for treatment of ringworm.

If you've never tried sorrel, be prepared to pucker up. This spring green is packed with potent astringency and a lemony, citrus-like flavor. It bump up the acidic quality of salads (just use less vinegar or lemon juice), and is great eaten raw.

Is sorrel better than spinach? ›

Sorrel leaves are richer in nutrients

When compared to spinach, sorrel leaves are comparatively higher in terms of fibre, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin B6, calcium and iron. Further, a cup of sorrel leaves will provide you with only 30 calories which is the same as spinach.

Many people enjoy wood sorrel, but sheep sorrel gives you much more bang for your buck. The succulent, tart leaves are great as a garnish and in salads, but they're at their best added by the handful and cooked into a dish as an herb.

How to Use Sorrel. Most folks use raw sorrel as an accent, but young spring sorrel can be wonderful tossed into salads, making for a nice citrusy bite. You can even drop a handful in the blender before blitzing up your breakfast smoothie.

You've probably heard of sorrel by other names. In Latin America, particularly Mexico, the flower is referred to as flor de Jamaica, and the drink is called Agua de flor de Jamaica. You might have also heard of it being called roselle, which is its African reference.

Cook sorrel in the same way as spinach, lightly steamed or boiled. Sorrel stalks can be cooked like rhubarb. The acidity of sorrel is tamed by cooking in butter or cream or by topping sorrel with a cream sauce. Sorrel soups are commonly thickened with eggs and cream.

Sorrel can be used as a detoxifying food as it is rich in vitamin C. Sorrel is an excellent diuretic and purgative since it contains flavonoids and other antioxidants. This aids in the elimination of toxic poisons from the body. Protocatechuic acid, found in sorrel leaves, assists in bodily detoxification.

Sorrel leaves are often used in salads, soups, sauces, and various other culinary preparations. They can be consumed raw or cooked, depending on personal preference and the desired flavor profile. However, it's worth noting that sorrel leaves contain oxalic acid, which can be harmful in large quantities.

There is a green leafy plant, used as a lemony sour herb or a vegetable, also called sorrel. It is not the same thing. The sorrel we are talking about here, is the outer part of a hibiscus flower, and it is distinctly blood red in color.