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Sorrel Delivery or Pickup
The Instacart guide to sorrel products
Whether you're trying a new recipe or looking for a tasty addition to a quick mixed salad, you can't go wrong with sorrel. Simplify the shopping experience when you shop for sorrel via Instacart. You'll find a range of sorrel products, including organic sorrel, available for delivery in as little as 2 hours!
About sorrel
A small, edible green plant, sorrel comes from the Polygonaceae family. (That family of foods includes plants you might know better: rhubarb and buckwheat). You may be familiar with the term with rau thom, as these leaves are known in Vietnamese cuisine, or gowkemeat, as sorrel is referred to in Scotland. No matter what you call the herb, though, you can expect sorrel leaves to deliver an intense, lemon-like tang.
People in Europe used sorrel during the Middle Ages, before citrus fruits ever arrived on European shores. The green herb that looks a bit like spinach indeed lends a sour flavor to cooking. However, once citrus fruits rose in popularity, sorrel was used less and less. Now, the lemony leaf is making a comeback, so you might want to use it in your cooking as well.
Three major varieties of sorrel exist:
- Broadleaf sorrel: This type of sorrel has leaves that are slender and shaped like arrows.
- French sorrel: Also known as Buckler leaf sorrel, this variety has small leaves shaped like bells.
- Red-veined sorrel: This kind of sorrel boasts tapered, slender leaves that have vibrant red veins throughout them.
Sorrel is rich in various nutrients and can offer an assortment of health benefits, including benefits to your immune system, heart health, blood pressure, and blood circulation. That's thanks to sorrel's high vitamin A, vitamin C, and potassium content.
Sorrel's distinctive sour taste comes from oxalic acid, which you can also find in spinach and black tea items. Because older sorrel leaves have a higher oxalic acid content, your best bet is to cook older sorrel instead of eating it raw. Eating short leaves raw and large leaves in cooked dishes is an easy way to think about sorrel. The younger leaves are often much more tender, but they don't hold up very well cooked. Short, young sorrel leaves work well in uncooked dishes or as garnishes.
How to pick out sorrel
Look for short, young leaves if you want to eat sorrel fresh, or large leaves to use in recipes for cooking. Because the leaves constantly grow from the center of a sorrel plant from the beginning of spring through late fall, sorrel is almost constantly in season. However, sorrel will get progressively more and more bitter as months progress.
How to store sorrel
Fresh sorrel doesn't store particularly well. Although you can keep it in your refrigerator for around a week or two, the texture and flavor will decline over time. You can also dry or freeze sorrel leaves (just like any other kind of herb), but keep in mind that the flavor of frozen leaves doesn't usually match fresh sorrel leaves' flavor. As a result, you might try to shop for sorrel that you plan to eat or cook with right away.
Sorrel Near Me
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FAQs about sorrel
The term sorrel is a Caribbean name for hibiscus flowers, so you'll want to make sure you're shopping for the correct product depending on your needs. The hibiscus flowers are commonly used in a popular Jamaican Christmas drink called sorrel, created from a red drink made with the flowering plant and brewed with ginger and rum.
If you're shopping for ingredients for that seasonal drink, you're looking for hibiscus flowers. That's very different from the green herb that boasts a tart, lemon taste — but is also called sorrel.
You can use fresh sorrel in salads or on sandwiches. You can also cook with sorrel. Sorrel leaves usually dissolve when you cook them for a long time, which imparts their lemony taste to your recipe.
As an herb or salad green, sorrel delivers a refreshing tartness. Toss baby sorrel greens into a mixed salad, or use it to add tang to a dressing if you don't have lemons on hand. You'll want to mix young sorrel leaves with milder greens and lettuces — sorrel's pronounced flavor means it isn't ideal for eating on its own. If you want to bring down the bitterness, you can also blanch sorrel.
Cook sorrel into sauce to serve with fish if you want to obtain a lemony taste without using the fruit. You can also cook sorrel into stews or soups, or use it alongside heartier main dishes in sauces, oils, and purees.
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