Wild Greens Salad With Persimmons and Hickory Nuts
Published Nov. 7, 2025
- Total Time
- 15 minutes
- Prep Time
- 5 minutes
- Cook Time
- 10 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- ½ cup hickory nut or pecan pieces
- Sea salt
- Ground sumac
- ½ cup diced fresh persimmon or 2 ounces dried persimmons (preferably the North American variety, which come into season in the late fall)
- 1tablespoon cider vinegar
- 1teaspoon maple syrup
- 8cups/about 4 ounces loosely packed wild greens (see Tip for more options)
- ¼ cup (or more, to taste) mountain mint or any tender, bright green mint, leaves torn
- 2tablespoons thinly sliced white parts of ramps, wild onion or scallion
- 2tablespoons sunflower oil or other neutral oil
Preparation
- Step 1
Spread the nuts in a large skillet in a single layer. Toast over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until fragrant. Transfer to a plate and season with salt and sumac.
- Step 2
If you’re using dried persimmons, bring a small saucepan of water to a boil. Add the persimmons and remove the pot from the heat. Let persimmons stand for about 10 minutes to rehydrate, then drain before cutting them into bite-size pieces.
- Step 3
In a large bowl, whisk together the vinegar and maple syrup. Add the wild greens, mint and ramps. Drizzle in the oil while tossing to coat the greens evenly, then add the nuts and persimmons and toss again. Taste and season with salt. Serve right away.
- In the spring, look for dandelion, plantain, chickweed and sochan. In the summer or fall, look for purslane, lamb’s quarters or plantain. While this salad celebrates foraging, it is delicious with even just arugula or mixed greens.
Private Notes
Comments
@Atje “They paved paradise and put in a parking lot.” Said a very wise woman songwriter decades ago.
I'm definitely going to try this- I love persimmons. I'm 48 and live in metro ATL. When I was a kid we just went into a stand of trees in unused lots and picked our own persimmons/plums/berries depending on the season. Where did all of those trees go? I didn't see persimmons in person again until I moved to the Netherlands (where we foraged for our own hazelnuts growing in a vacant lot:) I'm seriously asking: were they victims of pesticides or some such?
@Atje come to California! A neighbor just gifted me two giant bags of them because squirrels had nibbled them - I’m more than happy to work around the squirrel bites. But I think the empty lots are gone, sadly.
Just want to thank you for featuring foraged greens in a recipe! Here in Northern California, if we have rain in autumn, we are sure to have wild green annuals by the winter solstice - California (miner's) lettuce, chickweed, dock, and mustard cover the fields and hillsides. We are always looking for new ways to serve them. We're putting this on our menu for Xmas eve. Thank you!
Delicious! I made this as a lunch salad this December. For Greece, where I live, the recipe is counter-seasonal. Persimmons are now in the markets. Horta, the name that covers at least five different wild greens, are foraged in spring. As suggested by the author, I subbed a bag of grocery store mixed greens. Still five stars!
This was delicious! A perfect fall salad!