Pickled Milkweed Pods an Appalachian Favorite

Pickled milkweed pods are excellent with any cold meat, wild meats, fish or cheese platters. People in the Appalachian region know how to survive. That’s why this recipe for pickled milkweed pods came about. We reckon you have to pick a mile of milkweed growing on a fence row to be able to make enough of this to eat on a regular basis.

Ingredients for Pickled Milkweed Pods

Small milkweed pods about 1 1/2 inches long

• 1 quart vinegar11 quart water
• 2 pounds brown sugar
• 2 pounds white sugar
• 2 ounce whole cloves cut in half lengthwise
• 2 ounces stick cinnamon broken into small pieces
• 2 tablespoons ground vinegar

Tie spices in a cloth bag and bring all ingredients except milkweed pods to a brisk boil. lower heat to simmer and simmer 3 minutes. Let syrup stand overnight and next morning put the syrup over high heat, bringing it to a rapid boil. place milkweed pods in hot, sterilized jars and pour boiling hot syrup over them. Seal jars in a waterbath canner and store in a dark place after they are cool. These are ready for serving in about two weeks. They get better when they are older.

What About the Monarch Butterflies?

No worries about harming the Monarch butterfly population. Harvesting the pods for eating pickled won’t harm the lifecycle of the Monarch at all. As you can see from the picture below, this Monarch caterpillar is happy munching away at a milkweed leaf close to where it hatched from an egg. It will continue it’s life here eating this leaf until it finds a nice spot underneath the leaf to turn into a chrysalis. After a while, it will hatch into a beautiful butterfly.

Want to Grow Your Own Milkweed?

Check out the seeds in the link below. You can start out with 100 seeds to get you on your way to making your own pickled milkweed pods.

Common Milkweed Native Seeds (Asclepias Syriaca), Pack of 100 Seeds Less than $7