It's the Other Hop Crop and it's a top crop! What is it? Hop Shoots! Hops are worth growing just to eat their spring shoots. Hop to it -- and come into my post to get to know hop shoots and how to eat them!

I'm writing about hop shoots because they were part of a mini-contest I hosted last week. Only two people correctly identified my mystery plant -- @michaelmcdermott and @wholesomefoods, although @sunscape was half right in identifying the older, green hop shoots, too.

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Where Can I Get Hop Shoots?

Hop shoots are a special vegetable. You aren't likely to see them for sale in any store. Hop plants (Humulus lupulus) are grown commercially for their mature flowers called "hop cones" - an essential ingredient in brewing modern beer. I wrote a post on how to harvest, process, and store hop cones.

This is the crop that most people associate with hops -- the cones that hide the hop resin that is so important in making beer.

Commercial growers prune their hop shoots several times in the spring, to prevent disease. But they generally don't hand pick them -- it's too expensive! They just mow the shoots off.

If you have any hop farms in your area, you may be able to get permission to harvest shoots from their land. They will have a lot of shoots coming up in the spring, because hops grow like monsters - or what some might call "invasive"!

Or you can easily grow hops yourself. I'll write more about growing hops in a future post. Because hops are perennials, they work well for permaculture-style gardening. And the vines are pretty enough to use in a home landscape, too!

I neglect my hops, but they do well all on their own. They can grow 25 feet in a season and die back to ground level every winter.

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How Do I Harvest Hop Shoots?

The Earliest Shoots of Spring

Fresh hop shoots are available only in the spring. In the earliest spring, the emerging shoots are more purple. There are a lot of hop shoots! Hop plants want to spread out. They send runners underground and shoots will fill a whole area, if they aren't cut out!

I mulch my hop plants with wood chips. I cut the first shoots off below the wood chips or right at the surface. Below the chips, the hop shoots are white, because they haven't been exposed to the sun.

Hop shoots need to be cut in the spring! To the left and in the background, you can see how many shoots are coming up in this small area, just from one plant.

It doesn't take long at all to cut a big mess of hop shoots!

In the kitchen, it's important to wash these earliest shoots really well. They have been growing in the wood chip mulch. They will be dirty! Then I sort and trim them into the most tender pieces, pieces that are a less tender and need parboiling, and the tough parts that I don't use.

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The Shoots of Later Spring

Even after removing all the early spring shoots, hop plants keep sending up more shoots. These shoots of later in the spring are more green, with more and larger leaves. I only harvest the tips of these shoots. I don't use a knife because I would probably get some of the tough, woody parts. So I just snap off the green tips. That way, I'm sure I just have the tender parts and I don't have to do as much processing in the kitchen.

These plants need even more shoots removed - after two previous harvests! I only leave 2 or 3 shoots to grow into my production vines for the hop cones.

It doesn't take long to harvest these green hop shoots, either!

These hop shoots sure don't look like the ones of early spring! But they are equally as good!

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How Can I Eat Hop Shoots?

Here are 5 ways that I eat hop shoots. I will write more about how I cook hop shoots in future posts. I hope this whets your appetite for hop shoots!

1. Straight Up - Even though they can be dirty when the purple shoots are emerging from the ground, I like to snap them off and eat them right out there in the garden. They taste like mild green beans! The raw green shoots are good, too, but are more bitter, especially with open leaves.

2. Salads - Both stages of hop shoots are good raw in salads, too, along with small leaves.

There are a lot of different plants, mostly wild, in this salad. There are hop shoots and leaves in there, but I chop everything very fine to mix the textures and flavors. That's the secret to a great wild salad!

3. Sauteed - The tender shoots of early spring are easy to sautee in a little olive oil or butter. I use the most tender shoots for eating this way. It only takes a couple minutes. The green shoots of later spring are good to cook this way, too.

These early spring hop shoots were sauteed. They taste like mild asparagus. They are so worth eating!

Some parts of the spring hop shoots can be just a little more tough, but they are still worth eating. I take those parts and blanch them in boiling water for a couple minutes. Then I chop them up. They are really good in scrambled eggs!

4. Grilled -- This is one of my favorite ways to eat hop shoots! The grilling gives the shoots a great smoky flavor. It doesn't take long at all. I could eat these every day!

I love grilled hop shoots! If you are curious about the pink flowers on this plate, check out How to Find, Harvest, and Use Redbud Flowers

5. Pickled -- Pickled hop shoots are so good! I'll show you how I make them in a future post. It's so easy! They would make great bar food!

I like my pickled hop shoots with fresh, raw lambsquarter leaves, a great wild green. If this was on the menu at a pub, it would be a crowd favorite! But you can't buy that pickled hop shoots and lambsquarter combination anywhere -- you have to make it yourself!

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What Do You Think?

I hope you get a chance to eat hop shoots sometime! If you do eat hop shoots, I would sure like to read about it!

• Do you grow hops?
• Do you eat hop shoots?
• Have you ever seen hop shoots on a pub or restaurant menu?
• Would you eat any of my hop shoot meals?

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** Haphazard Homestead **

*** foraging, gardening, nature, simple living close to the land ***

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