Use Acorns for Food

True nuts, acorns are an excellent source of food and they used to provide people with a wealth of food ideas in earlier times. Today, they're coming back into fashion as a food and rightly so because they're filled with B vitamins, protein, little fat, and they're a decent complex carbohydrate. They are also good for controlling blood sugar levels.[1] However, in order to make the most of acorns, you'll need to improve their bland or bitter taste. Here are some suggestions on using acorns for food.

Steps

  1. Gather your ripe acorns. Green acorns are unripe and are unsuitable for eating (but mature green acorns can ripen in a clean, dry place). Untreated raw acorns contain high concentrations of tannic acid, so their taste is bitter, and they can be toxic to humans, if eaten in large quantities.[2] Water process/treat only ripened, brown acorns. Avoid any acorns that appear mildewed, dusty, blackened, etc. Quality nutmeat will be yellowish in colour.[1]

    Unprocessed, natural nuts of various kinds of oaks:
    • White oaks produce bland tasting acorns. The best for harvesting are the Swamp Oak, Oregon White Oak, and the burr oak.[1] Generally these won't need leaching.
    • Red oaks produce bitter tasting acorns.
    • The Emory Oak's acorns are mild enough to not require processing.[1]
    • Black oaks produce very bitter tasting acorns and need a lot of leaching to overcome this.
  2. Process acorns, for tasting nutty and slightly sweet: removing bitterness makes acorns delectable -- by simple, water leaching.[1]

    Leach shelled acorns by soaking or boiling in water. Pouring off the hot water (also called blanching) with repeated changes of water. Continue doing this until the water stops turning brown when you strain and replace it.
    • Another method for leaching: Place one tablespoon of baking soda into one litre of water. Leave the acorns to soak in the baking soda infused water for 12-15 hours.
    • A Native American or rustic method is bagging the shelled nuts and allowing them to soak in a clean, flowing stream for a few days until no brown colored water is seen when checking their progress.[2]
  3. Remove the acorns once leached and leave to simply dry or to make roasted nuts after drying, as desired. (On the other hand, raw acorns can be stored for months without spoiling; this dramatically increases their value, being a "process as needed food resource".) But only when leached: are they ready to use.
  4. Make acorn "coffee". Peel the ripe, leached/blanched acorns. Divide the kernels. Place in an ovenproof dish and cover. Roast in a low heat oven to dry slowly. Stir frequently. Once roasted (light, medium or dark), grind. The resulting mixture can be blended into commercial coffee -- or used on its own to make acorn coffee.
  5. Make acorn flour, whole -- or sift to remove fiber to make a finer cake flour called acorn starch! Read How to make acorn flour for instructions. Use the flour to make breads, muffins, etc.
    • Korean cooking is largely the only cuisine that features acorn starch. Some Korean noodles and jellies are made of acorn starch. As this starch is a favorite part of that cuisine, then many Asian grocery markets sell it.[2]
  6. Pickle the leached acorns in brine. Use an Make Pickled Olives and substitute acorns for the olives to make a treat/delicacy.
  7. Substitute roasted acorns for nuts and cooked beans/legumes. Ground or chopped acorns can replace many nuts and legumes, such as chickpeas, peanuts, macadamias, etc. Follow your usual recipe and substitute acorn pieces instead. Like most nuts, they are a nutritious, dense food; to use freely.
    • Make acorn Make Dukkah, a dry spicy mixed dip, which has many uses, but is mainly used to dip bread that has been basted with olive oil or butter.
    • Sprinkle chopped, roasted acorns over a fresh salad as part of the dressing.
  8. Roast the acorns. Once roasted, remove and dip in very heavy sugar syrup.
  9. Add acorns to stews as one might add beans or potatoes. Their nutty, slightly sweet taste adds a lovely depth to stews.
  10. Add ground acorns to creamed, mashed potatoes or potato salad. This can give these standards a nice lift in flavour, adding "conversation-piece" value.



Tips

  • Feed ripe acorns to farm animals. Avoid feeding green acorns as these can be poisonous. Green acorns will naturally ripen, after falling off the tree. They can be used, for people or livestock feed, after they have turned brown.
  • Oak nut collecting season is usually September and October in the northern hemisphere (late summer).
  • If you have an oil press, make acorn oil. Acorn oil has similar properties to olive oil and is used in Algeria and Morocco.
  • In Germany, acorns are used to make sweet "Eichel Kaffee," while the Turks use acorns to make "racahout," which is similar to a spicy hot chocolate.
  • Some Native Americans used to refer to acorns as "grain from trees" as it was pounded into flour/meal.[1]
  • Get Dietary Benefits: Like most nuts, acorns are a protein dense food. They are not as high in fat as some other nuts, but a good source of complex carbohydrate, fibers if used whole, not sifted, and containing some vitamins and minerals.[2]
    • Some studies even show them, as nuts generally do, to have properties that can help control blood bad cholesterol and sugar levels.

Warnings

  • Holes indicate worm infestations and blackened or dusty/midewy acorns should be avoided.
  • To collect only good, sound acorns: sit under the tree like the Native Americans, picking up acorns, making sure to put holey ones into a trash container, or you will be picking them up again. And again... Keep the acorns of one tree (or at least one kind of oak tree) separate from other kinds. When you are done gathering, pitch the acorns into a bucket of water and skim off anything that floats. Put the skimmings into your compost; or better yet, dry and burn them since many of the floaters contain worms that are working on burrowing their way out; this is why they float. Fewer worms mean fewer adults to lay eggs and more edible acorns! The acorns that do not float are good. If they are green, keep them in a dry, shaded place until they turn brown.

Things You'll Need

  • Hot water
  • Leaching containers
  • Roaster, oven
  • Grinder

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  • Food from the oak, Growing Today, December 1994, pp. 20-21 – research source
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Jackie Clay, Harvesting the Wild, http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/clay79.html
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 wisegeek.org -- "Can People Eat Acorns?" http://www.wisegeek.org/can-people-eat-acorns.htm

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