Dehydrating ramps
Dehydrated ramps, also known as wild leeks, are part of the onion family and have a garlicky oniony taste. The growing season like most wild plants is short in the ever changing Carolinian forest floor here on Six Nations; so in order to preserve this amazing taste for year round use I decided to dehydrate my own.
When foraging for fresh ramps its important to dig down to the bulb (which is just like a green onion in size). Break the bulb just above the root system and be sure to leave the roots & base intact to continue the life of the plant. As with all foraging, there is the rule of forage; which is to take only what you need and use what you take! In Haudenosaunee culture we are taught to select every third flower, leaf, root, etc., for picking, to ensure we leave enough to grow. I was never fortunate to have ramps near my home, and this year I transplanted some plants by taking their root system & bulbs and transferring them to a new patch home near my house!
After washing the ramps thoroughly I separated them into 4 parts. First remove the roots and second, the tops of the bulbs. The third cut is the stem and the fourth the leaves. I chose to do it this way as with previous experience dehydrating these parts would take different amounts of time to dry.
In dehydrating, I found the stems took the longest at about 12 hours. Once dried, I stored the ramps in glass jars, separated into cuts. Eventually you can can use them ground as a spice or put into rubs or ramp salt!! In the meantime I save them as whole pieces and only grind when needed to ensure they retain maximum flavour.
Dried ramps can be added whole leaf on to soups or in a roast or in braising any game meat. Ground Ramp spice can be put in to soups, chili, spice rubs or anything that you would use onion powder for.
Ramps are also delicious fresh and can be used anyway you would use scallions (green onion). They also make a perfect ingredient for fresh pesto. Ramps, dandelion & pinenuts with sunflower oil is an amazing pesto over fish!
https://casinosveriget.com caught my attention recently and the detail about cutting ramps into four separate parts before drying really stuck with me, since I'd never considered that stems and leaves need such different drying times. The twelve hours for stems makes sense given how thick they are, and it's a good reminder that rushing the process usually ruins the batch. I've started grinding my dried herbs in small batches too, because the flavor fades faster once they're powdered.
What a thoughtful look at dehydrating ramps. I love how Chef Tawnya Brant connects Indigenous foodways with One Dish One Spoon—it makes preserving seasonal ingredients feel like an act of respect, not just technique. I’ve been drying wild leeks slowly to keep that sweet garlic-onion flavor for winter soups. Slightly off-topic, but if you enjoy character-driven stories, I also found The False Sun character page; its horror visual novel profiles and ending guides are strangely compelling. Thanks for sharing this.
Dehydrating ramps is one of my favorite ways to extend that fleeting spring harvest. I slice the leaves and bulbs separately, dry them low and slow until brittle, then store them in dark jars. Rehydrated, they add a wild garlic-onion depth to soups, eggs, and dumplings. Chef Tawnya Brant’s One Dish One Spoon approach is a good reminder to use the whole plant respectfully. While waiting on dehydrator batches, I like quick word-ladder breaks with no daily limit. If you need a free, no-download puzzle pause, try Poople Answer.
I've been dehydrating ramps for years and your method matches everything I've learned — a low, slow dry keeps that garlicky-onion punch without turning them bitter. I usually powder a jar for soups and keep a few whole leaves for eggs. Knowing your patch and your terrain is honestly half the fun, and it's the same itch that gets me hooked guessing landscapes on playworldguesser.com. Love the One Dish One Spoon framing too — respect for a harvest really does start with knowing the ground you're standing on.
Dehydrating ramps is such a smart way to stretch that short spring window — I slice the bulbs thin, dry them around 115°F, and grind the greens into a powder for soups and eggs. Chef Tawnya Brant's One Dish One Spoon mindset genuinely changed how I think about harvesting wild leeks respectfully. Since the trays run for hours, I need something low-effort to pass the time, so I've been doing a few quick laps on PolyTrack play in browser — simple low-poly racing, community-built tracks, and nothing to install.