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St. Pat’s Surprise: Clover Salad (and It’s Delicious!)
Yes, this charming groundcover can also be edible. Try this Irish-inspired recipe
By: Sherry Rujikarn
Before it was ever a marshmallow in a breakfast cereal or considered a bothersome weed, nutrient-rich clover has been tossed into soups and salads or dried for teas and tinctures. The entire plant, whether the red or white type, is edible, provided you’re mindful about sourcing and cleaning. The puffy flowers are the sweetest part, and the younger leaves grassy and mildly bitter, similar to pea shoots. While the names “shamrock” and “clover” are often used interchangeably to represent the luck of the Irish, clover plants are their own genus while “shamrock” instead can refer to various clover-like species.
Do you have some available for eating? Taking the best of Ireland’s land and sea (turf and surf, you might say), this dish is our love letter to the Emerald Isle. A vibrant salad of clover and arugula lightly dressed with lemon is a bright contrast to silky slices of Irish smoked salmon. The cured fish is a deliciously unusual (or unusually delicious?) pairing with fruit-studded soda bread, slathered with golden Irish butter.
If luck isn’t on your side and you can’t find young clover leaves (four-leaf or otherwise), any mixture of microgreens makes a fine substitution.
A simple (10 minutes or less) recipe that’s salty, sweet, creamy, tart, and gorgeously green? We’ll say “slainte” (slawn-cha; how the Irish say "Cheers") to that!
Clover Salad with Smoked Salmon Toasts
Serves 2 to 4, as an appetizer or light meal
5 tbsp Irish unsalted butter, room temperature
4 slices Irish soda bread or rye bread, each cut into halves (for a total of 8 pieces), toasted
4 oz thinly sliced Irish smoked salmon
2 cups arugula
1 cup young clover leaves or microgreens
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp olive oil
2 tbsp hulled sunflower seeds
1 tbsp thinly sliced fresh chives
Salt, pepper to taste
- Spread the butter on the bread slices. Top with the salmon. Sprinkle with a pinch of black pepper. Arrange on serving plates.
- In a medium bowl, toss the arugula, clover leaves or microgreens, lemon juice, olive oil, and a pinch of salt. Add the sunflower seeds and chives and toss to combine.
- Serve salad on top of the toasts.
About the Writer
Sherry Rujikarn is a recipe developer, food writer, and content creator who’s contributed to NYTimes Cooking, Good Housekeeping, Yahoo! Life, House Beautiful, and Esquire. She lives in New York City with her husband and spaghetti-slurping toddler. When she’s not contemplating “what’s for dinner,” she is rooting for the Yankees and hunting for vintage treasures.