When you have a large crop of artichokes from the garden or farmstand, you don't have time to casually include them in complicated recipes or to frantically figure out how to use them up before they go bad without getting sick of them. You want to make the most of your harvest and to actually enjoy it.
Here at Plant to Plate, we like to keep things simple! Here are some of my favorite ways to use or preserve artichokes:
- Sauté or stirfry the hearts with olive oil and garlic.
- Dip the hearts in buffalo sauce or sriracha.
- Use the hearts as a Frame in an Interesting Salad. (Wondering why I capitalized those letters? Read more about Interesting Salads here!)
- Make a dip with artichoke hearts along with cooked spinach and cream cheese or a cream cheese substitute. Add garlic powder and/or cayenne powder if desired.
- Grill the hearts with lemon juice and fresh garlic or garlic powder.
- Grill the hearts with lime juice and cayenne powder.
- Steam the hearts in a mixture of olive oil, parsley, and lemon or lime juice.
- Add the leaves to smoothies. Their bitter qualities are well-balanced by the fruit in the smoothie.
- Decoct the leaves.
- Make a tincture with the leaves. An herb:solvent ratio of 1:5 at 40% alcohol is suggested for an artichoke leaf tincture.
- Make infused vinegar. Both hearts and leaves of artichokes can be used in herbal vinegars. Infused vinegar makes a great salad dressing or dressing base, among other uses.
- Make infused oil. Both hearts and leaves can be used in artichoke-infused oil.
- Dry the leaves for later use. Trim them off and follow standard drying procedures. See our How to Dry Your Herbs articles here for more information.
- Blanch and freeze the hearts for later use. After trimming off the leaves, blanch artichoke hearts and freeze them. Learn more about blanching in this article.
Further Reading
Growing artichokes? Check out these quick facts like their best growing conditions, companion plants, and expected yields.
Artichokes are also featured in these articles: