What Is Sorrel and How Can I Use It?
Sorrel rewards a little know-how: how to choose it, cook it, store it, and substitute in a pinch. Browse 10 recipes to cook with it.
Key Points
- Leafy green herb with a sharp lemony tartness from the oxalic acid in its leaves.
- Wilts in a minute into a tart puree that sauces fish and eggs.
- Anchors classic sorrel soups across Eastern Europe and brightens heavy bowls.
- Turns drab olive-brown when cooked; that is normal, not spoilage.
- No true swap; use spinach plus lemon, and store it for only a few days.
What is sorrel?
Sorrel is a leafy green herb known for one thing: a sharp, lemony tartness that comes from the oxalic acid in its leaves. The arrow-shaped leaves look like young spinach but taste bright and sour, almost like green apple peel.
You use it as both a herb and a vegetable. A few raw leaves wake up a salad, while a big handful cooks down into a tart green puree that becomes a sauce in its own right.
That sourness is the whole appeal. Sorrel brings the lemon to a dish without the watery dilution of actual lemon juice.
How to Cook With Sorrel
Sorrel melts. Drop a pile of leaves into a hot pan with a little butter and within a minute or two it collapses into a soft, khaki-colored puree, the way spinach wilts but faster.
That puree is the classic move. Loosen it with cream or stock and you have a tart sauce that is the traditional partner for rich fish like salmon and trout, and for eggs. Spaghetti with Salmon & Sorrel (Or Spinach) leans on exactly that pairing.
It is also a soup green. Sorrel soup is a whole tradition across Eastern Europe, and the herb anchors dishes like Green Barley Soup with Sorrel & Spinach and Split Pea Soup with Sorrel, where its acidity keeps a heavy bowl from feeling flat.
Raw, young sorrel leaves are a sharp addition to a salad or a herb paste like Sorrel-Chive Herb Paste (Pesto). Use them small and scattered, since a whole salad of sorrel would be punishingly sour.
Pairing and the Color Problem
Sorrel belongs with fatty fish, eggs, cream, butter, and potatoes, all of which welcome a hit of acid to cut the richness. It also plays well next to spinach, which mellows its sourness and bulks out the volume.
The thing nobody warns you about is the color. The moment sorrel hits heat it loses its vivid green and turns a drab olive-brown.
That is normal and unavoidable, caused by the acid breaking down the chlorophyll, so do not judge a cooked sorrel sauce by its looks.
If you want green on the plate, keep some leaves raw and add them at the end, or blend in a little spinach for color. Avoid cooking sorrel in bare cast iron or aluminum, since the acid can react with the metal and pick up an off, tinny taste.
What to Use Instead
There is no exact swap, because the lemon tartness is the point. The closest fix is spinach plus a good squeeze of lemon juice or a splash of vinegar, added to taste at the end.
Baby spinach gives you the soft texture and the green color, and the acid you add covers the sour note that spinach lacks. For a raw salad, a few leaves of arugula plus lemon get you the bite.
In a finished sauce, you can sometimes just lean harder on lemon juice and skip the herb, accepting that you lose the silky wilted body sorrel brings.
Buying and Storing Sorrel
Sorrel is a seasonal spring and early-summer green, found mostly at farmers markets rather than year-round in supermarkets. Pick bright green, crisp leaves and avoid any that look yellowed or slimy.
It is delicate and does not keep long, so use it within two or three days. Wrap the leaves loosely in a damp paper towel inside an open bag and store them in the fridge crisper drawer.
Sorrel does not dry well, but it freezes if you cook it first. Wilt the leaves into a puree, cool it, and freeze in small portions, then drop the frozen puree straight into a sauce or soup later.
Quick facts
- In Chinese
- 酢浆草
- British (UK) term
- Sorrel
- en français
- oseille
- en español
- alazán
Recipes using sorrel
There are 10 recipes that contain this ingredient.
Green Barley Soup with Sorrel & Spinach
here and there they call this soup green borsht or green krupnik.. very popular in Latvia but they cook it in different way than my proposition..
Grilled Snapper with A Herb Salad
Whole grilled snapper served with a bright herb salad of basil, mint, fennel fronds, sorrel, and edible nasturtium flowers dressed in lemon and olive oil.
Shaker Herb Soup
Shaker herb soup with chives, chervil, sorrel, and tarragon simmered in chicken broth, ladled over toast, and topped with nutmeg and grated cheddar. A garden-fresh 40-minute bowl of pure simplicity.
June Soup
June soup is a chunky split pea and summer vegetable soup brightened with lemony sorrel and built on a lemon-scented homemade chicken stock. Rustic, fresh, and left deliberately unblended so every vegetable keeps its bite.
Spaghetti with Salmon& Sorrel (Or Spinach)
Flaked salmon and ribbons of sorrel or spinach tossed with buttered spaghetti, tiny broccoli florets, lemon, and Parmesan. An elegant, colorful pasta that comes together in under an hour.
Split Pea Soup with Sorrel
Refined split pea soup with fresh sorrel, ham hock, lemon, and cream, puréed silky smooth and strained. Serve it piping hot in winter or well chilled as an elegant summer starter.
Sorrel-Chive Herb Paste (Pesto)
Sorrel-chive pesto with fresh sorrel, chives, pine nuts, shallots, orange zest, and olive oil blended into a tangy herb paste. A no-cheese pesto variation that stores for months.
