Easy Peasy Pickled Ramps

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, when ramps poke through the spring soil and we go foraging. But like all great things ramps are only around for a short time, just a few weeks and so we make pickled ramps.

Ramps are also known as wild leeks or wild garlic and while they are very popular in Canada and northern US States, they also are known in other countries as wild spring onions, ramson and wood leeks.

In Ontario they grow wild and it’s legal to pick them but that’s not the case in Nova Scotia or Quebec where over foraging has led to them becoming close to extinction. For this reason we’re careful that we buy from ethical foragers or forage ramps ourselves.

Read our beginner’s guide to foraging edible plants.

Pickled ramps are easy to make and can be used in beer battered ramps with Korean chili goat yogurt. You can also preserve ramps with charred ramp pesto and ramp kimchi.

This year we brought out some of the staff from Loka to go foraging with us. A beautiful day just a few hours outside Toronto, we spent the afternoon in the forest looking for ramps and wild ginger.

We’re really lucky that staff at the restaurant are as excited as we are to go foraging and for them it was their first time. I know everyone complains about millennials but we hired some really talented staff that care not just about a paycheque but also things that we really care about.

Pickled Ramps Recipe

We prefer to pickle the entire ramp including the leaves. Once you clean the ramps and remove any roots that may be attached you can put them directly into the jar – OR blanch the ramps first as it will enable you to stuff more into a jar.

In this recipe we’ve used cider vinegar but we’ve also used red wine vinegar which makes the jars a pretty pink colour.

Easy Peasy Pickled Ramps is a post from: Bacon is Magic