There’s an Amazing Winter Bounty Hiding in Your Yard if You Know What to Look For – Try Foraging in Winter for Fresh Flavor

Foraging in winter gives you a taste of living off the land without giving up your creature comforts. You can drive your car to a good foraging area and listen to music on your phone as you search for edible roots and berries. But it may be more fun to make it a real back-to-nature adventure and hike out with a basket and a pocketknife.

Foraging in this modern age involves the same, basic steps as it has throughout history – seeking out plants that can provide sustenance. While in yesteryear, people learned which plants are edible and which are deadly from their elders, you will need to figure this out on your own. When it comes to foraging for beginners, you must put safety first.

You’ll need a guidebook to identify plants that will taste good and not kill you when you eat them. One trustworthy source for foraging is the internationally recognized foraging authority, Samuel Thayer. His book "The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants" is available from Bookshop.org, and is a great place to start. Unfortunately, there have been many AI-generated foraging books available from major online retailers that are inaccurate and unsafe to use, so please do your research into the author of any foraging book you purchase to help keep yourself safe.

1. Nuts: Black Walnuts

Nuts are great for first time foraging, because these do not seem exotic or scary. Everybody knows what a walnut looks like. For winter foraging, just find a black walnut tree (Juglans nigra) and look under it for nuts the squirrels haven’t gathered yet.

There is a caveat: These walnuts will not be ready to toss into a salad. They will almost certainly need to be hulled. Hulling can be a messy business and gloves are advised. After that, you’ll need to dry them out for a couple of weeks or more before eating or storing them. If you are processing a lot of black walnuts, you'll want a heavy duty black walnut cracker like the Grandpa's Goody Getter which is available from Amazon. (Don't let the goofy name fool you; this nutcracker means business!)

Black walnut trees are native to this country. You’ll find them growing in the wild in the eastern and central states, on forest edges and along riverbanks.

2. Mushrooms: Oyster Mushrooms

Foraging for mushrooms is a time-honored tradition in Europe, and the hobby is taking off in parts of this country too. The problem with mushrooms is that there are some that will kill you or take out your liver, so do be careful, go slow, a run your mushrooms by an expert before eating.

A good place to start is with oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus). Here’s how to identify this edible species: look for a smooth, light-colored cap shaped like an oyster and 2-10 inches across (5-25 cm). They usually grow in overlapping clusters on logs or deciduous trees. The underside of the cap is marked by indented lines. These are gills and run down the underside of the cap and right into the stem.

These mushrooms grow in many states. You’ll have the best luck finding these natives in the Midwest and Northeast.

3. Roots: Dandelions

Almost all parts of dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) are edible, but in winter you’re not likely to find leaves and flowers. That leaves the nutrient-rich roots that can be roasted and eaten as veggies. Dried, they make a beverage that some people consume as a coffee substitute.

The best time to forage for dandelion roots is in winter, after the first frost. They are plump at that time with lots of fiber. The stems just above the roots are called the crowns and these are also edible. Be sure to forage in areas where no pesticides have been used and get far from roads since the plants can absorb pollutants.

Dandelions grow in all 50 states. Identify dandelions in winter by locating the basal rosette of foliage at ground level. Don’t pull on this or it will break. Instead, dig it out with a garden tool. A soil knife like this one from A.M. Leonard can be purchased from Amazon and is a great tool for digging weeds.

4. Berries: Rosehips

Do you grow roses (Rosa spp.)? Then you know what a rose hip looks like. Rose hips are the fruit of roses, small, edible, seed pods left on the tips of the rose stems when the flowers have wilted and died. All roses produce hips and all are edible, but native rose bush hips are the most delicious. They can be used in jelly, sauces and teas.

Wild roses are found all around the world in a wide variety of natural habitats. All bloom in spring and summer and you can forage for hips in fall and winter. Identify them by their orange or red color, their oblong shape, and the small wisps of “hair” protruding from the bottom of the rose hip.

5. Trees: Maple Sap

Maple tree sap is edible, healthy and sweet. It tastes like watery maple syrup. To get serious about foraging maple sap, you’ll need to find large trees and tap them in late winter. The ideal time is when temperatures are above freezing in the day and below freezing at night.

To be safe with this winter foraging, you’ll need to select a tree that is free from contaminants, then cook the sap to kill bacteria. Tapping trees is a skill that anyone can learn. All you need is a small drill and a spout, aka a spile. You drill a shallow hole, insert a spout and collect the sap in a bucket. Boil down the watery sap for syrup. Don’t forget to seal up the holes with beeswax after you are done to keep disease from entering the tree. Maple Tapper brand's tree tapping kit from Amazon is a great starter kit for collecting fresh maple sap.

Winter may seem like a dead, dark time of the year but there is so much bounty to gather! Get outside and give winter foraging a try.