My son and I had a wonderful day foraging for spruce tips on the small trail behind our property. It was the perfect day, no humidity but still warm and a beautiful breeze. It’s truly a blessing to learn about the wild foods that grow around us and discover ways to enjoy them.
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I took the opportunity to teach him about ethical wild harvesting and why we couldn’t take what we needed from only one tree. Instead we wandered for close to an hour, taking a few from each tree we saw. We also got a rock in our shoe and saw a crow. All in all a grand adventure.
Why Spruce Tips
Spruce tips are delicious and packed full of vitamin C. They are also rich in potassium and magnesium, as well as carteonoids. Spruce has been used by the indigenous peoples of Canada (and the United States) to help relieve coughs, colds and sore throats, for longer than we’ve been here! Last but certainly not least, these bright green nutritional powerhouses are also high in chlorophyll.
When You Want to Harvest Them
Truthfully I thought we might be a bit late in our harvesting adventure, but I’ve tested the sugar and its quite lovely. The key is to get them while they still have their papery casing on them. At this point they are soft and tender and have citrus notes along with a hint of resin. Once they start to harden and lose the bright green colour you will want to stop harvesting.
Note: Make sure you try a few first before you harvest cups full, just to make sure you enjoy them and they don’t go to waste. This is a good rule of thumb for any wild harvesting/foraging you may do.
How To Enjoy Them
Due to their citrusy flavour they can be enjoyed in a variety of ways.
- Salads, smoothies, blended with mayonnaise, infused vinegar, pickled or infused sugar.
- Dried to make a tea to treat respiratory ailments and sore throats in the winter months
- Dried to preserve as a spicein cooking
- Infuse your drinking water with some tips chopped
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What We Did With Them
Spruce Tip Sugar
Remove the paper casing from your spruce tips, wash and pat dry (or let air dry). Using a herb grinder or food processor pulse:
- 1 cup of spruce tips
- 1 cup of granulated sugar
- We used organic cane sugar
Pulse until they texture is uniform and spread on a baking tray or pan lined with parchment paper.
Allow to air dry at room temperature, stirring a couple of times daily, until the sugar is completely dry.
Note: The sugar will be really sticky at first but it will dry out. If you find this isn’t working at room temperature you can heat your oven to 150 degrees and dry them for about an hour.
Once the sugar is dry place them back in the food processor and pulse a few times to break up the chunks.
Store in an airtight container. Use the sugar as a sprinkle or shortbread or other baked yummies, flavour your tea or us it to rim your co*cktails. I can’t wait to try this in so many different dishes!
Lacto-fermented Spruce Tip Pickles
I’m always looking for reasons to use my Pickle Pipe 
. It’s been a very welcome addition to my home-cooking/homesteading/herbal medicine making kitchen.While I love pickling using a heated brine and then canning, I love the added benefits of probiotic production you get from lacto-fermenting something.
This recipe is for making one 500 ml jar of lacto-fermented pickled spruce tips.
- Remove the paper casing from the spruce tips, wash and pat dry.
- Fill your jar with spruce tips – about 2 cups worth
- Add 1 tsp of sea salt
- Fill with filtered water
You will need to ensure that your spruce tips stay below the brine. I used sterilized rocks (boiled them for 15 minutes). Some folks use cabbage leaves. I will definitely be purchasing Pickle Pebbles 
at my first opportunity. If you don’t have a pickle pipe you will need to ensure you “burp” your jar every now and again as fermentation creates gas as a by-product.
Your pickles will take at least 3 daysto fully ferment but taste testing is always a fun and good idea. You will need to make sure to keep an eye on your pickles as lacto-fermentation happens faster at warmer temperatures. You will know it’s fermenting because there will be bubbles. Once they are fermented store them in the fridge using a regular canning lid. Enjoy them on their own, blended as a part of salad dressings or mayonnaise. I plan on trying them in lots of dishes and will update this post as I find yummy ways to enjoy them! .
Thanks for joining us on our spruce tip adventure! I’d love to hear about what you do with your spruce tips.
P.S. Please pin for future use 😉
Jinion June 9, 2017 at 11:06 pm
What a wonderful idea! And love the pics of your little guy 🙂
Is there an ingredient missing from your lacto-fermented recipe? Usually lacto-fermentation is done with liquid whey…
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Spiraea Herbson June 10, 2017 at 6:38 pm
Hi Jini! Yes lots of fermented foods have whey but you can also use salt as your starter culture. I used this article as a reference for it. http://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/natural-fermentation/salt-vs-whey-vs-starter-cultures/
And thankfully the spruce tips pickled wonderfully with just salt 🙂 I imagine you could use whey if you wanted but I didn’t have any so I just used sea salt. Hope that helps!
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Jinion June 11, 2017 at 1:06 am
Okay I get you. In that case, then they are not lacto-fermented – as “lacto” refers to milk.. They would just be ‘fermented’ or ‘cultured’ spruce tips. I shared this post on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ListenToYourHorse1/ so thanks!
Reply
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Spiraea Herbson June 13, 2017 at 6:40 am
Oh my goodness yes it does. Ha! I will remove the word lacto. Thanks!
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bwoosteron April 23, 2019 at 4:39 pm
Lacto refers to the bacteria (Lactobacillus) that is causing the ferment. Has nothing to do with milk.. Lacto fermented foods do not require milk whey, however milk whey often used (unnecessarily) as a starter.
Laurie Nathanon May 11, 2019 at 10:54 am
the lacto refers to the bacteria that form/collect…lactobacillus. So, yes, it is a lactoferment. At least as I understand it. 8^))
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Shanañ kingon May 28, 2021 at 8:48 am
Hi. Lacto-fermentation does not refer to milk…….it refers to the lactobacilli bacteria that is the basis of lacto-fermentation. Lactobacillus bacteria convert sugars naturally present in fruit or vegetables into lactic acid. 🙂
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Stephanieon May 7, 2018 at 9:43 am
How do you know when fermented spruce tips are “done?” What is the flavor supposed to be like? And is there a “wrong”, i.e., dangerous outcome? Mine have been going for three days; no funk or anything yucky looking, and the smell is just sprucey. First ferment, so just nervous I guess. Thanks!
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Spiraea Herbson May 7, 2018 at 10:01 am
Most ferments take about 3-4 days 🙂 They should start to bubble a bit. They will taste fairly sprucey/lemony with a hint of salt. With all ferments there is a risk of growing mold so if anything every grows anything fuzzy or smells off I would chuck it at once.
And no problem at all with the questions! Happy to help 🙂
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Alexandriaon February 9, 2019 at 6:05 pm
When is the best time to collect the tips?
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Spiraea Herbson February 10, 2019 at 5:52 pm
Hi Alexandria,
This will be dependent on where you live, but I do mention in the blog post that you want to get them when they still have their papery cover on them (just on the tip). You can harvest them afterwards, but they quickly loose their citrus note as the tips mature. Hope that helps and happy harvesting!
Correne
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