Dandelion Oat Waffles (with a gluten free option)

Dandelion flowers are one of my favourite herbs for forage for. It’s a true sign of spring and their uses are vast. Last year Monkey Man and I made dandelion cookies and they were simply delicious. The year before we baked dandelion bread and it was also a winner. So as you can imagine when I saw my entire lawn just full of dandelions I got excited for this year’s experiment. Since Monkey just ran out of waffles in the freezer it’s time to make him another batch. I decided to use our trusty waffle recipe with the added awesomeness of dandelion flowers and viola… you have dandelion oat waffles.

It is important to remember that dandelion flowers are often the first food that bees can find so don’t take everything. Even with something as common as dandelions I follow the 10% rule that I outline on this post about ethical wild-harvesting. Also ensure that the locations you are harvesting your flowers from are clean and unsprayed because no one wants to ingest body-poisoning chemicals. I would also suggest avoiding areas prone to animal urine as washing dandelion flowers makes them rather soggy and unworkable.

While I never force Monkey to do anything I always greatly encourage him to join me on wildharvesting and foraging adventures. There are a lot of benefits to the homesteading lifestyle and my son learning where food comes from is one of them. So is the benefit of knowing which foods are safe to eat in the wild just in case he needs that information/knowledge one day.

As a note the gluten free option in this recipe is grinding gluten free oats into flour instead of using whole wheat or all-purpose flour. If you suffer from a gluten allergy or intolerance ensure that you get a gluten free rolled oat and not just any old brand. Also ensure that you don’t get them at a bulk store for fear of cross contamination. For folks who can’t have gluten free oats either your trusted brand of gluten free all-purpose flour should do the trick!

As the pictures show Monkey found the waffles incredibly delicious (his words not mine) and gave them 96 thumbs up (only two shown of course).

Thanks for joining me on another dandelion baking adventure! And enjoy your waffles.

P.S. Pin for future reference