One of the first things I did when I moved to California was plant sorrel in my backyard. It is my kind of veggie: Tart, tender, drought-resistant, indestructible. Ignore it and sorrel thrives. Stomp on it and it comes back stronger. And it’s green almost all year long.
Sorrel soup is a classic. It is a harbinger of spring all over Europe, and several versions of it exist from Scotland to France to Russia.
Sorrel, like many early-spring greens, is a tonic after so many months of eating roots and preserved meats. It is very high in Vitamin C and reasonably high in iron. It’s tang — I call it “lemonade in a leaf” — comes from oxalic acid, the same thing that make its cousin rhubarb taste the way it does.
Sorrel is exceptional paired with seafood or chicken, and I often make a simple sorrel sauce whenever I have some trout or salmon or pheasant around.
Everything about sorrel soup sounded wonderful, save one: For whatever reason, sorrel turns olive green almost the second it touches the heat. Sorrel looks like overcooked collard greens even before it’s fully wilted. And I have a thing about overcooked greens, although I am trying to get over it. I want my greens to shine like emeralds, not look like the side of an Army truck.
I stood in my yard, staring at my gigantic sorrel patch. Would another year pass without me making sorrel soup? I got out my scissors. No, I’d suck it up and deal with the drab.
You don’t have to garden to enjoy sorrel. I happen to grow the common garden sorrel that was developed in France centuries ago, but there are several wild sorrel species that live in North America.
Most common are the oxalis family, of which there are scores. Chief among this clan is creeping wood sorrel, Oxalis corniculata, which looks like shamrocks with little yellow flowers. It turns bronze in cold weather and often infiltrates your lawn. There is another sorrel that lives in the West Coast, Oxalis albicans. It too has shamrocks, only they’re larger and the yellow flowers are the color of saffron-and-cream. You see this sorrel a lot in the Bay Area.
In the woods you will find sheep sorrel, Rumex acetosella. It has tiny, arrow-shaped leaves and grows in a little rosette. Sheep sorrel can carpet the forest floor. My garden sorrel is a relative of this one.
Since the French really pioneered the cultivation of sorrel, I decided to make my sorrel soup a French one. There are scores of recipes for this soup, but if you want to make a classic French dish you go to the classic French cookbook: Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. My version of this recipe differs from Julia’s only in that I used wild onions instead of regular onions, and I used more sorrel. Other than that, it is an homage to a master.
As you might expect from a vegetable whose chief attribute is tartness, this soup would be inedible without the cream and eggs to temper it. With them, however, it becomes a bright, smooth wake-up call from a long winter. All it needed for total balance was a good loaf of bread and a crisp white wine. Enjoy!
Sorrel Soup, French Style
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
- 1/2 cup chopped green onions, ramps or other wild onion
- 4-6 cups of chopped sorrel, packed
- Salt
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 1 quart chicken stock or vegetable stock
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup cream
Instructions
- Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the green onions or ramps and turn the heat to medium-low. Cover the pot and cook gently for 10 minutes.
- While the onions are cooking, pour the stock into another pot and bring to a simmer.
- Turn the heat up, add the sorrel leaves and a healthy pinch of salt to the pot with the onions and stir well. When the sorrel is mostly wilted, turn the heat back to medium-low, cover and cook 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Mix in the flour and cook over medium heat for 3 minutes.
- Whisk in the hot stock, stirring constantly. Bring this to a simmer.
- To finish the soup, whisk together the egg yolks and cream. Temper the mixture by ladling a little soup into it with one hand, while you whisk the egg-cream mix with the other. Repeat this three times. (You are doing this to prevent the eggs from scrambling) Now start whisking the soup. Pour the hot egg-cream-soup mixture into the pot with the soup, whisking all the way. Add the final tablespoon of butter. Let this cook -- below a simmer -- for 5 minutes. Do not let it boil or the soup will break. Serve at once.
Hi Hank,
Great recipe, thank you. Have you tried making a big batch and freezing some? I made this and it tasted great at the time but I froze the rest and found it tasted different upon thawing. You mentioned your sorrel sauce doesn’t freeze well and I’m wondering if this is the same? Thanks!
Jean: No, I never freeze it. The egg liaison breaks.
I highly recommend this recipe. I’ve made it a few times now and don’t alter or substitute anything except to occasionally use leeks. Sorrel is common here in Russia, ramps less so. In the past I would make sorrel soup with potato, but never again! One thing I’ve learned is that sorrel stalk can be horribly fibrous and nearly ruin a soup, so now I’m careful to discard all of the stalk before chopping the leaves.
This is a lovely recipe that I have used a number of times. Just one correction. For those from West Virginia, Gallo hearty burgundy is the ideal wine pairing. LOL.
Thank you for your recipe. We have sorrel growing in our herb garden, and aside from serving it as part of a salad, I was not sure what else to do with it. I know that the French have incorporated sorrel in their cuisine for many years. We have not tried this soup yet, but I am sure it will be delicious when we do.
:0)
well what better place to land as we (in NZ) are at the end our second week of COVID -19 lock down ( 2 of 4) – lots of sorrel in my late summer/autumn and this was fabulous I am so enjoying a back to basics approach to cooking
Fantastic recipe! This has become an immediate favorite. Try adding the barest hint of cayenne for a little added pizzazz.
This was my favorite new recipe of last year. I ended up using scapes in place of onions and it was lovely. I can’t wait to make it again this weekend with ramps. Thanks so much for sharing a great recipe!
This soup sounds amazing! I recently inherited a community garden and the prior owners of my plot have a huge amount of red-veined sorrel growing in it. I’m so excited to use it in recipes. Will this soup work just as good with red-veined sorrel?
Giuletta: Yep, although the color will be different.
Wonderful! There was a freak snow storm in NYC in November, so I harvested all of my remaining sorrel and made this soup. It was a perfect transition from the fruits of summer to the threshold of winter. Normally, saying good-bye to the garden at the end of the season is depressing, but this soup was a ray of sunshine in a bowl. Thanks!
Oh my! What a treat this was! I raved about this all week. Also the health benefits of sorrel are outstanding. Our taste buds were convinced we were enjoying a soup in a five star french restaurant. Oh we used shallots instead of onions.
Excellent soup. We got a free packet of Sorrel seeds last year. Used them a bit in salads but they get eaten a lot by pests so not the best for us in salad. With being able to boil it up to kill off any residue from the pests its a better use of the sorrel. Already on our second pot, I think it will be a summer staple, use up a lot of the sorrel and keep it down with regular cuttings so the pests dont get a chance to establish like last year. Cheers.
This soup is excellent and a great way to use up my abundant sorrel.
What a lovely site. My mother (new to the internet) managed to google Sorrel Soup and up you came. She found your writing so witty that she said she just had to ring me and share. And of course she is right. Great writing and neither of use can wait to try your recipe; we have a veggie patch entirely overrun by this delightful vegetable!
Fabulous soup. I have tried sorrel soup with potatoes countless times and have never had a good result. This recipe is perfectly delicious! Thanks.
Susan, yesterday at our community garden I was talking to a Polish lady who has a lovely row of sorrel. She told me that I could just take a knife and cut my clump of sorrel into pieces and spread them out to make a row like hers. Then I should just keep cutting the leaves off at ground level to keep them coming up nice and green for ages.
My sorrel has not grown enough to provide me with 4-6 cups o sorrel. I live in Minnesota and everything’s just starting to come up. Maybe i should divide the clump and grow some more?
Hi Hanks,
Made the sorrel soup. Tasted amazing!
Any suggestion what to do with the sorrel stalks? they’re as tasty as the leaves!
Similar to my recipe but I boil potatoes and blend it in with the sorrel and serve cold. My daughter in law is from France and she loves it, Says it reminds her of the soup her mom used to make.
Looks a great recipe and I will adapt it with what I have to hand tonight. Never thought of looking in my Julia Child.
Please could you explain Ramps? I think you mean what we in deepest Wales would call Ransomes. Wild, green flat long leaf, comes out early spring and is best as soon as it emerges. Past its best it has white flowers. Five months too late for that.
There is a wild Welsh onion grows in a hedgebank here February to April. Like a very coarse chive. Delightful when it first appears.
I discovered a patch of wild sorrel this afternoon while relieving a bank on my organic all habitat farm of its chanterelle mushrooms. The pasture is very damp and flukey. Consequently, tasting the sorrel, which I did, is not safe. Consequently, the sorrel needs to be cooked. The leaves are coarse and full, even the new shoots and it doesn’t grow several leaves on a stalk like the sheep sorrel in my hay meadows.
My mother in law had a beautiful herb garden, which I have now reclaimed
and made into a kitchen garden. Her tiny sorrel leaves about the size of a
nickel come up in plenty, and it takes a lot of work to harvest enough for
my favorite soup. It is always worth it, but I found that the large more common sorrel leaves on sale at our farmer’s market make coming up with 4-6 cups worth a lot easier. In the past I have not added egg yolks. Do you think that is an essential ingredient?
Mmmmm! Delicious! We have a huge patch of sorrel which we’ve just halved. I love this soup. Our kids are not convinced. I might try the potato version next time.
mmm…about to have a late April freeze, so I picked a bunch of my sorrel for soup. I thought to check for recipes to see if other people put it in a blender. I was pleased to find you have a recipe, and that it is with egg and a ‘whisker’. Thank you!
Sorry, when does the fourth tablespoon of butter go in?
Maidiepodles: Right at the end.
Sorrel grows great in Toronto! Best soup ever.
Oxalic acid is sooooo good for you! Eat up.
Love the frozen sorrel butter idea! I have been growing sorrel in a couple of pots, and have been considering when to make the soup. Now I am ready, thanks to you all! Glad of the warning that the bright green colour won’t prevail when the sorrel is wilted. So, I guess one can add fresh green chopped herbs at the end. I think I shall try tarragon – and use various stocks.
made this today and it came out great – despite a few tough-ish fibers at the base of the older leaves which i failed to remove.
out of curiosity has anyone tried making this with yellow dock leaves? i’ve tried cooking them before and they they turned to a sour sludge in a pan similar to sorrel.. makes me think they would do fine as a replacement
As a kid I knew that the “sourgrass” with which I grew up in Southern California – it was everywhere in the orange groves in spring – was an oxalis. Now I’ve learned that it’s Oxalis pes-caprae, an invasive yellow-flowered import from South Africa that goes under the name of Bermuda buttercup. It occurred to me tonight to try making soup of it, and it too works. I was making an experimental batch: about a cup of chopped oxalis stirred into a combination of chicken stock and white wine, simmered, blended, and returned to the pot for the addition of a couple tablespoons of frozen duxelles (shallots, parsley, and mushrooms cooked to sludge in butter), then finished with a dollop of cream.
I make a Polish sorrel, szcaw in Polish, soup all year-round. Sorrell freezes beautifully. My daughter grew up on it and still looks forward my cooking it for her at age 30? It’s delicious.
We visited our local garden market in Kielce (Poland) yesterday (September 27th) and I bought a big bunch of sorrel. We have it growing wild in our meadow but usually the leaves are much smaller and only pickable in early Spring.
This looks like a good recipe so will be having this soup for my lunch today!
By the way, in addition to my previous post – there are only 2 of us, so I put the remainder in the freezer. I am hoping it will be OK. Also, the recipe lists 4 tablespoons of butter, with instructions for only three of them. So I left one out. I guess it didn’t make any difference.
regards
Kimball
Hi,
I have sorrel growing in my garden in Brisbane, Australia, and really wanted to use it effectively. I followed your recipe to the letter, and what a beautiful meal I cooked. So satisfying, and full of flavour. I think I understand how the French achieve such satisfaction with their meals.
regards
Kimball
I’m on a soup kick and have had sorrel growing in my garden for three or four years. I usually add quite a bit of it to Caesar salads .. but wanted to try the classic sorrel soup .. will give yours a try. I’m going to add a potato and a little less flour.
Thanks ..
Thank you so much for this article and recipe! I also have had a big, beautiful sorrel patch… unused for years until yesterday I decided to find a recipe and finally make the soup. I only had a vague idea what to expect. Your recipe was delicious, and this soup is wonderful! Now I know I’m going to make much better use of my sorrel growing right outside! And thanks also for the info on Oxalis… which I’ve been allowing to grow wild where ever it comes up.
Just made this last night. We don’t grow sorrel, but I’ve been getting it every week in my UCD student farm veggie basket. It was wonderful. And not as drab as I expected.
Yup….looks amazing. Must grow some more sorrel this year and try this
@ Kyle,
Grows like a weed in Seattle. I have French Sorrel in my herb and salad garden (full sun), and oxialis all over my shady side yard.
I’m gonna try this tonight for dinner. Thanks!
Yeah, this post made my mouth water 2x now 🙂
Great recipe. We wondered what to do with the sorrel- so we will try this. I would like to try pheasant stock, any thoughts on the flavor vs. chicken stock? Just curious…
Michael Q: I used pheasant stock, actually. And yeah, I put the veggie stock in there so this could be vegetarian. It’d be fine with either.
Love sorrel wild and cultivated though they are so different! I often nibble on wood sorrel raw in the woods here in ME while hunting, it’s got that nice lemon tang and I like to pretend it take the human sent off my breath;) Do you use the veg stock just for the veg heads or do you think chicken stock is too strong? I would be inclined to use a clear chicken stock.
Have spent the past 6 years trying to eradicate this plant from our garden only to find out that it is not only edible, but delicious too. Fortunately my efforts were unsuccessful and some survived. My son and I dined on it this evening, it got a 10 out of 10. We will be taking better care of it from now on!
This looks delicious. I have planted sorrel and will be trying this soup. Looks amazing. Thank you.
I’ve got sorrel growing and was just thinking about what to do with it. Your note that it will survive being stomped on gives me hope that my division of the plant will survive as well! (I wanted to move it.)
Mmm..reminds me of when I was a kid and my Granpa showed me two different types of wood sorrel in the yard, one with like purplish white flowers and one with yellow flowers. I used to love eating them as snacks while I was outside playing. I really got a kick out of the sour flavor. I often skipped about eating sorrel and sucking on honeysuckle blossoms. I’ll have to keep an eye out for either a plant here in germany or maybe at one of the specialty shops or if I’m lucky in the small farmers market. Thanks for the reminder. 🙂
I do a lighter version of this soup: instead of the flour roux, egg, and cream I use potato to thicken the soup (simply cook chunks of peeled potato in with the other ingredients until tender and then puree the soup with an immersion blender).
I preserve sorrel (usually one of the wild ones) by wilting it in butter. Then I freeze enough of the sorrel butter for one batch of soup or sauce in a ramekin. Once frozen, I pop out the disk of sorrel butter and stash it with the others I’ve accumulated during the growing season. In winter when I’m ready to make sorrel soup or sauce (great on seafood), I just take one of the sorrel butter disks out of the freezer.
Hmm i wonder if that’ll grow well in Seattle. Looks mighty good. Serve it with a warm crusty baguette!
I will definitely be making this with our resident oxalis. I still don’t understand why a person with perfectly good free food would want to go out and buy a plant that does the same thing.
: )
I’ve got some of red-veined sorrel growing in my garden. http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7309-red-veined-sorrel.aspx Put it in a pot though to keep it under control. Unstoppable growing machine; some random critter came by and gave it a buzzcut, down to the ground, and in a month or two it was back up like nothing had happened.
So glad I found you on Twitter! I love using healthy food I can grow myself and sorrel sounds like the perfect veggie to add to my garden. I’m looking forward to trying this recipe and will start looking to see if I can find some locally. Great post, thanks so much for sharing. Have just added you to a must read on my blog list ;-D