These easy ramp recipes will make you want to get out in the forest foraging for ramps. Here is a collection of my recipes over the years as well as my favourite cooks.
Is winter over yet? Let’s face it, spring is a hot and cold lover. With sunny weather one day and then freezing rain for days.
But it’s also one of my favourite seasons as so many vegetables appear. Over the years I’ve shared my favourite ramp recipes from foraging in the forest.
I’ve foraged on private land and am lucky enough to be in a group where we are the only ones using the land so we ensure sustainability each year.
But please read the post below if you’re foraging on public land.
MUST READ: Spring Guide to Foraging Edible Plants
Ramps are like natures perfect onion, so delicate but fragrant.
They only appear for a few weeks each year and then make way for summer.
27 Delicious Ramp Recipes
Ramps are an allium often called wild garlic, or more specifically wild leeks.
They can also be called spring onion, ramson, bärlauch, Ramsløg or wood leek depending on where you live in the world.
They typically grow in northern United States and also throughout southern Canada.
But you can also find them in the Europe, South Asia and other areas that have cooler spring-like weather foe one season.
If you know where to go, you can forage ramps – please be responsible! It’s best to cut the roots and leave them in the ground so it can continue to grow.
This not only helps the plant but early on I learned the hard way that most of the dirt and mud is in the roots.
For every pound of ramps you’ll bring home an extra five pounds of dirt.
A seasonal vegetable, you can also find ramps in the farmer’s market in spring. Usually cleaned for you – bonus!
But they won’t be on the seller’s table. Like a convert operation you have to ask if they have any. If they do they are always under the table.
Wild foods are often out of site, reserved for people who truly know how special this spring foraged food can be.
I wanted to share these ramp recipes in one place as they are great for beginners and don’t take much time to make.
Wild Ramp Recipes
Pickled Ramps
Ramps only appear for a few weeks but I like to enjoy them year round.
Ramps are great as pickles and it ensures that if you buy/pick a bunch and aren’t able to eat them all that you aren’t wasting precious ramps.
They are amazing over pasta, can be battered and fried, or served on crostini. The flavour is so delicate as a pickle that I love them on their own.
Spring Greens Salad with Wild Garlic
A healthy salad with so many delicious flavours of spring. It starts with a bed of healthy quinoa and is topped with fresh, raw vegetables in an avocado ramp sauce.
This is a perfect ramps recipe for your farmers market haul.
Spring Greens Salad with Wild Garlic
Ramp Kimchi
Kimchi isn’t just for cabbage! Like regular leeks, people often wonder what to do with the greens from wild leeks – aka ramps.
An easy way to use them is to ferment them into kimchi. They are fantastic as a condiment, like on the hot dogs above or mixed with a bit of goat yogurt to make a dipping sauce.
Kimchi seems intimidating but really it’s not so hard and pretty low maintenance. It’s great way to use all of the ramps and extend the flavour.
Beer Battered Ramps
This may be one of my favourite recipes. I call it nature’s onion ring. People rave about this simple beer batter mix with the ramp kimchi mayo.
It’s so simple to make and so decadent. You can make this recipe with fresh or pickled ramps.
Sundried Tomato Swirls with Wild Garlic Pesto
I love this post because so many ramps recipes are for pesto, which is great but then people have so much pesto and they don’t know what to do with it beyond pasta.
Using an all butter puff pastry, this is an easy but delicious way to use ramps. I adore savoury pastries so this is right up my alley.
Sundried Tomato Swirls with Wild Garlic Pesto
Grilled Potato Salad with Ramps
A great no-mess ramps recipe that cooks potatoes and other ingredients in a foil packet. It’s perfect for gatherings as it’s gluten free and vegan too.
The mustard and maple dressing adds a nice sweet tang to the deep onion garlic flavour of the ramps. It’s good the first time you eat it and even better the next day as leftovers.
Grilled Potato Salad with Ramps
Sea Salt and Lemon Grilled Ramps
Some of the best ramps recipes are the most simple, using just a few ingredients and letting this wild food sing.
This is a simple recipe using three ingredients: ramps, lemon juice and sea salt. It brings out all the rich flavours of ramps and is a perfect side dish.
Sea Salt and Lemon Grilled Ramps
Fiddlehead Ramp Cheese Tart
For a short period in spring you can get both fiddleheads and ramps, and it’s absolutely a perfect combination.
Fiddleheads are very common on the east coast of Canada, especially New Brunswick.
If you have ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) in your forest then you have fiddlehead ferns in spring.
The #1 rule: never eat them raw.
This is another fantastic ramps recipe using puff pastry. It is a simple tart with creamy gruyere and fontina cheese and these two delicate spring foods.
Fiddlehead Ramp Cheese Tart<
Ramps and Garlic Mustard Frittata
A double dose of great garlicky flavour, garlic mustard is usually considered an invasive weed but is a great compliment to ramps.
Great for breakfast or brunch, this frittata cooks in just 10 minutes in the oven.
Ramps and Garlic Mustard Frittata
Focaccia with Radish Ramp Butter
If you’re a fan of compound butters (aka flavoured butters) this is one of the best ramps recipes for you.
And what is better than fantastic bread and butter? The only downside is that while it appears you’ll have a big batch to eat for days, you may like it so much you eat it all in one sitting.
Focaccia with Radish Ramp Butter
Warm Corn Salad with Bacon and Ramps
A simple 5-ingredient corn salad, that uses all the best flavours.
Who wouldn’t want a salad that has the great garlic onion flavours combined with bacon! It’s a robust salad with lots of flavour and could outside the main course.
Warm Corn Salad with Bacon and Ramps
Wild Garlic Falafels
I didn’t like falafels for a long time until I discovered Jordanian food and realized I was eating cheap, poor quality falafels.
These ramp falafels are a great baked option and lower in calories.
They can be made in advance for a party and warmed up when everyone arrives – and no one should have a problem eating them as they are vegan and gluten-free!
Ramps and Cherry Tomato Pie
As a Canadian I wasn’t aware of just how good a tomato pie could be until I explored the best restaurants in Charleston and had a life changing tomato pie.
It’s always been in the back of my head to learn how to make one myself. And this is the perfect opportunity!
The garlic-onion flavour is a perfect compliment to the decadent cheesy tomato tart.
Wild Garlic Chips
One of the ramps recipes that takes things to the next level.
If you’ve ever made kale chips and were disappointed by the flavour these ramps chips solves everything.
With an addition of cheese, it almost mimics the flavour of sour cream and onion chips in Canada.
It’s a great low carb, lower fat option…or just a great snack.
Open Faced Sandwiches with Ramps
A decadent and delicious sandwich made with spring vegetables, creamy labneh and fresh bread.
A tartine is an open faced sandwich, often eaten in France for breakfast or lunch, quality ingredients are a must.
It’s also a great option for kids as you can prep the ingredients and allow children to top their own sandwich.
Mushroom Onion and Ramp Jalousie
More puff pastry goodness, this vegetarian ramp recipe takes the umami of mushrooms and gives it a garlicky, oniony, cheesy pairing.
A classic dish in traditional French cuisine, this French pastry is essentially a window shutter with little slats to see the gorgeous filling.
It looks complicated but with store bought pastry it’s a quick dish.
Ramps Pastas
Ramp Pasta
One of the easiest ramps recipes as there is no preparation.
I love this ramp pasta with prosciutto and parmesan because it’s so comforting on cold rainy spring days.
The saltiness of the prosciutto and cheese complement the onion for a pasta that is everything full flavoured but light. Best of all, this ramp pasta takes less than 10 minutes to make.
Ramp Gnocchi with Sautéed Kale and Crispy Bacon
Spring is not the time to be passing on carbs!
You can have a nice light ramps pasta with delicate seasonal vegetables and this recipe shows just how good comfort food can be.
Inspired a bit by the flavours and textures of perogies, it caught my eye because no recipe can be wrong if it includes bacon and sour cream.
Rotini Ramp Pesto
Rotini may just be one of the best shapes for a ramp pasta recipe, especially if it’s made with pesto.
The little rings catch all the garlicky goodness from ramps. If the ramp pesto is already made then this is a very quick recipe perfect for weeknights.
Beet Ricotta Gnocchi with Ramps
More great ramp gnocchi, this time made with ricotta and vibrant red beets.
Don’t be intimidated about making pasta from scratch, this is a fool proof recipe to make fluffy gnocchi and may be the most colourful dish on your plate this spring.
Beet Ricotta Gnocchi with Ramps
Ramp Pestos
Charred Ramp Pesto
Pesto is just like Argentinean chimichurri or French pistou – you can use so many different kinds of greens.
Here’s another one of the ramps recipes that aims to use all of the plant. You torch the ramp before combining it with pesto ingredients.
If you do not have a a torch at home you can do this by putting the plants under the oven broiler.
Wild Garlic Hemp and Sunflower Seed Pesto
I love this ramp pesto recipe because it’s a bit more elaborate with hemp and sunflower seeds.
It’s a vegan ramp pesto so there’s no cheese, but does’t require nutritional yeast so don’t worry if you don’t have it.
This is a thick pesto that is perfect for spreading on sandwiche and pizzas but can easily be thinned out with a bit more olive oil if you’d like to use on pasta.
Wild Garlic Hemp and Sunflower Seed Pesto
Wild Garlic Pesto
A classic ramp pesto recipe and bonus it’s also no-carb so it’s perfect for anyone on keto and those who eat parmesan on paleo diets.
You want to buy a high quality parmesan and grate it into the pesto.
Pre-grated supermarket brand parmesan just doesn’t hold up to the pungent ramp flavour.
Vegan Wild Ramp Pesto
Another great vegan ramp pesto recipe option if you have nutritional yeast on hand.
While a classic Italian pesto recipe uses pine nuts, I love that this one uses walnuts which is a great compliment to the wild garlic flavour.
Ramp Soups
Creamy Wild Garlic Soup
A fresh tasting soup that can be made in ten minutes, it’s perfect for a spring lunch.
While many ramp soups are a riff on leek and potato soup, this recipe does not use potato making it a perfect light option.
It is both vegan and dairy free as it gets its creaminess from coconut milk.
Vegan Wild Garlic Soup
Another great vegan soup option, instead of coconut milk this ramp soup uses creamy cashews.
It’s a great comfort food option and includes a recipe to make coconut bacon pinwheels
Creamy Asparagus and Ramp Soup
There’s a short period where asparagus and ramp season collide and it’s a beautiful time.
The ramp soup recipe celebrates this moment in spring with a hearty soup made with a touch of heavy cream. It’s decadent and so vibrant.
Wild Garlic Soup with Crispy Chips
This soup is a show stopper that rivals smoothie bowls with its toppings.
It’s a filling ramp soup with potatoes and gets its vibrant colour from spinach. Don’t miss the tips on how to make beet and carrot chips for garnish.
Wild garlic soup with crispy chips
What ramps recipes did we miss? I’d love to how how you use ramps in the comments below.
Pin it: Wild Ramp Recipes
Your post is increasing my appetite 🙂 Thanks for sharing
Lovely read and amazing recipes. Thanks for sharing.
Great pics and won’t lie but i am drooling right now. Thanx for your awesomeness
I am loving the sounds of all of these ramp recipes… Especially the Ramp Kimchi!!! It looks so good! And thanks for the resources. I might get that Peterson Field Guide you recommended.
It’s a great resource, one of the best if you’re interested in foraging.
I don’t think I’ve ever tried these before. but judging from this round up I would love to! That beer battered recipe, in particular, is calling my name 😉
It’s one of my favourites.
I’ve never tried ramps, but the charred ramp pesto and beer battered ramps look delicious! Thanks for sharing! Happy weekend!
I love kimchi and other fermented vegetables like carrots and cabbage, I like the taste and I like how they make my stomach feel. I would never have thought of the idea to ferment wild leeks. Don’t ask why, it’s really not that far fetched.
I don’t get the idea behind torching the ramp before making the pesto? But then again, I haven’t read the actual recipe. I’ll go do that 🙂 Thanks for a nice recipe collection!
The torching gives it a different flavour, but if you don’t have a torch you could just blanch them and make pesto from that.
Awesome recipes!
I’m now gonna attempt the pesto for my girlfriend.
Keep up the good work.
Some of these recipes look amazing! Now all I need would be the ramps! Thanks for all the suggestions.