False Dandelions vs. True Dandelions and a Cat’s Ear Jelly Recipe — Mossygoat Farm (2024)

If you already familiar with Cat’s Ears and you just want the recipe, click here. Thank you.

Dandelions are a pretty safe weed to start foraging with. They are plentiful and edible. They are widespread and actually found on all seven continents. But I have dragged my feet on gathering and eating dandelions because my dandelions are mostly false dandelions. To further complicate the issue, many internet resources confuse the two. I see pictures of both plants used interchangeably

So why is this important to us horse owners? False dandelions are poisonous to horses and cause stringhalt. Stringhalt is also called equine reflex hypertonia. It is neuromuscular in nature and is a sudden excessive upward jerky movement that a horse makes with their hind legs. Watch a video featuring a horse with stringhalt and you will understand my concern. False dandelions contain a neurotoxin for horses. My horse training has taught me to fear false dandelions.

We don’t use chemical control at Mossygoat Farm so I usually spend hours pulling False Dandelions by hand. This was the year of homesteading through crisis and my false dandelions just didn’t get hand weeded so I decided that this was the year to get down and dirty with false dandelion research.

I decided to dig in and research to answer the real dandelion/false dandelion question. Looking out my front window to a see of dandelion flowers made me want jelly. But are false dandelions bad for humans? Can you do the same things with false dandelions and eat them the same way as dandelions?

First, let’s look at the similarities and differences. Both true and false dandelions are members of the Aster family, Asteraceae. The belong to different genera though. True dandelions that we think of are Taraxacum officinale although there are other dandelions in the Taraxacum genus. False dandelions are look alikes within the Aster family but are not in the genus Taraxacum. One of the most common dandelion look-alike is Hypocharis radicata, also known as Cat’s Ear or Flatweed.

True Dandelions

False Dandelions

My particular false dandelion is Cat’s Ear, which is one of the most common false dandelions.

Can humans eat Cat’s Ear?

The good news is that all false dandelions are edible and nutritious for us humans. The nutrition profile is going to be similar to true dandelion. The bad news is that its considered a noxious weed because it takes away habit from native plants and because it is poisonous to horses. Do not let weeds grow simply because they are edible and nutritious. It is advice I occasionally see foragers give but doing so may have wider ecosystem implications.

To help control your Cat’s Ear you can remove the flowers so they do not produce seeds. Why not make the flowers into jelly? This is a very time consuming recipe but well worth the effort.

Here is the printable recipe if you want to skip the instructions.

For this recipe you will need:

• A basket or large bowl filled with Cat’s Ear false dandelion flower heads

• 1 cup honey

• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice. I used the juice from 1 lemon but bottled lemon juice is preferable because it has standardized acidity.

• Any brand of lite/no sugar pectin.

To can this recipe you will need:

• A pot for water bath canning, tongs for lifting jars, 4 rings and lids, 4 half pint jelly jars, a large mouth funnel, and a ladle.

For this recipe you HAVE to use no sugar pectin. Regular pectin WILL NOT work! The reason is that sugar is a preservative. Most people tend to only think of it as a sweetener but it also preserves. Regular pectin recipes feature such high sugar amounts both to sweeten and preserve. Using alternative sweeteners or honey changes the chemical composition of what you are making. Any pectin designed for no/low sugar will work with honey. This is the first time I worked with this pectin brand, Mrs. Wages.

Instructions:

Gather your flower heads. You will need at least twice as many cups as your recipe.

If you plan on freezing your jelly then when you are done you can transfer it into freezer safe jars and let it cool.

Everyone has their own way of canning. I know a wonderful woman who uses her oven and I have used the old “turn the canning jar upside down on your counter” method. However, I do try to use approved canning methods and will only showcase approved canning methods here at mossygoat.com. If you are an experienced canner then please use your own method.

First you need to sterilize your jars. Jars also need to be hot when you add the hot juice to them before you put them in the canner. If you put hot juice in cold or room temperature jars then you can have breakage.

For small canning jobs I use my small Duo Pressure Cooker/Canner. For regular water bath canning I just place my lid on top rather than locking it and have it set on “steam.” This ensures that no pressure builds up.

I place more jars in my canner than I plan on using in case the recipe makes more than planned. I fill my canner up with water until the lips of the jars are completely underwater. I then place on my stove and heat until boiling. The jars need to boil for 10 minutes to be sterilized. Using this method I have sterilized jars that will be hot when I am ready to use them.

Following the direction on my pectin, I added the pectin to the tea and let it sit. I then boiled the pectin for one minute, added honey, and boiled for one more minute. Do not over heat as this may cause your pectin to fail.

When you are done cooking your jelly per the recipe, you will need to skim the foam off the top with a spoon.