Wild Foraging: How To Identify, Harvest and Prepare Bracken Fern (Fiddleheads)

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Bracken fern is an edible plant found in the wild with a unique and tasty flavor profile. It’s grows in abundance in a variety of terrains. Learn where to find it, how to identify it, and how to prepare it for eating.

What is Bracken Fern?

It tastes like asparagus and almonds you can pick it wild on hillsides, open pastures, burned-over areas, in woodlands and other shaded places.  It’s pretty much everywhere! The young immature fronds of bracken ferns are known as fiddleheads and were widely consumed by Native Americans in the U.S. for centuries as well as in other regions of the world.  They are still consumed by millions throughout the world today, are considered more of a delicacy in the U.S.now, but are very popular and commonly in Japan and Korea.

Bracken ferns are thought to have the widest distribution of any fern in the world, are most prolific herbaceous plant in North America, with the exception of Antarctica, are found on every continent and in every environment except for deserts.  They’re also one of the oldest ferns in the world with fossil records going back 55 million years.

How to Identify Bracken Fern

Bracken has large, triangular-shaped fronds and is the only fern with side branches.  It’s bright green in the Spring and then in late Summer the leaves turn golden and then brown.  The fern never completely dies but remains in this “dead stage” through the winter and then new shoots come up the next Spring where the old growth is.

You can identify these new young edible shoots as single un-branched stalks with fronds coming off the stem at intervals.  The very top, the fiddlehead, is curled up and will gradually unroll as it grows.

Though foraged and eaten for centuries by billions of people, bracken ferns have been the subject of debate.  Bracken ferns are poisonous to many animals and contain ptalquiloside, a carcinogen.  You’ll find references everyone online with statements that you shouldn’t eat it.  The truth is that ptalquiloside is both water-soluble and is destroyed in heat and alkaline conditions (see United States Forest Service and The Atlantic).  So sautéed or pickled, and eaten in moderation, you can safely enjoy these fiddleheads.

And, they’re delicious and fun to forage!  Let me show you how.

Our Spring so far has been gorgeous here in western Washington!  We’ve been outside almost every day doing a variety of activities.  For one, we’ve been busy prepping the huge vegetable garden on our historic 8 acres.  With our kids we’ve also been spending time at the beach, discovering ant hills on our property (much to our kids’ delight), hiking in the local forests, and…foraging for wild edibles.

We’ve been hiking around with our medicinal and general plant identification books and our kids have been having a blast learning how to identify and forage nature’s bounty. One of the books we like and highly recommend for those of you in the Pacific Northwest is Pacific Northwest Foraging.  (You can also find books for other regions as well as edible plants across all of North America and Britain and Europe.)

It contains large color photos of the plants from various angles to help you identify them, discusses their features, flavors, when to pick them and how to prepare them.  It’s a handy guide, user-friendly and the color pictures make it easy to reference and fun for kids to use.

We’ve been foraging away with our kids, eating some things fresh and drying others for long-term use.

Right now is bracken fern season – come join us for the hunt!

We equipped our kids with our plant identification book and let them lead the way in finding them.

They had a blast playing “plant detective” and were soon on their way!

We explored our property looking for bracken ferns.

A couple of days later we went hiking in the forest and found more there as well.

Turn around, they’re right behind you….

Pssst, they’re right in front of you….

There they are!!

Bracken ferns need to be harvested while they’re young and immature, while their fronds are still curled up.

They’re hard to miss with their tall straight stems and curly fronds on the top.

Depending on the height of the stalks, you’ll pick them about 5 inches or higher above the ground (for tall ones) or as little as an inch from the ground if they’re short.

You’ll be able to tell where to pick them based on how they break.

If they bend and don’t readily snap you’ll know to pick them higher up.

Another two inches higher on this one….it will give a very audible “snap” with a clean break, like tender asparagus.

We foraged a good batch of them to take back to the kitchen.

And bracken ferns weren’t the only thing our kids found!

A garter snake may be harmless but still….YIKES!!! Turns out it was already dead.

Our proud little foragers with their first trophies of the season!

How to Cook Bracken Fern

Bracken fern stems are covered with soft tiny hairs that will easily come off when you rub your fingers across them and they’ll come off when they’re boiled as well.  They’re harmless.

One of the best ways to prepare bracken ferns is to blanch and then sauté them.

Get a bowl of ice water ready.

Add some salt to a pot of water and get it boiling.

Wash the ferns, drain them, and the drop them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes to blanch them.

Immediately place them in the ice water to cool down.

And now we’re going to sauté them in butter.

I’m also going to add a few fresh herbs from our garden.

Sauté them for 2-3 minutes.  You don’t want to overcook them.  Like asparagus you want them to be crisp-tender.

Add a little more salt and a grind or two of pepper.

Serve immediately.

One of nature’s delicious bounties! 

The next time you’re out enjoying nature take a look around you and there’s a good chance you’ll find some fiddleheads.  Snap a few off and take them home with you try.  You’re going to be pleasantly surprised!

See you next time for another installment of my Wild Foraging series!

Disclosure: To ensure safety and selection of the correct plant, refer to diagrams and descriptions from a reputable plant identification guide.

Originally published on The Daring Gourmet April 22, 2016