🇩🇪 Germany, 🇦🇹 Austria, and 🇨🇭 Switzerland · South Germany, Austria, Switzerland
Nine-herb soup (Grüne Neune)
A spring soup of nine wild herbs eaten on Maundy Thursday (Gründonnerstag), typically with potato and cream.
Origin and history
Grüne Neune, the soup of nine wild herbs, is the Maundy Thursday (Gründonnerstag) dish of southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Austrian sources describe it as one of the oldest spring dishes, made to drive out winter, that later became attached to Gründonnerstag. Green stands for the reawakening of life and hope; nine, three times three, was held sacred. The name Gründonnerstag may come from greinen, to weep, rather than from green.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 45 min
- Hands-on
- 25 min
Ingredients
- 40 g2 large handfuls young stinging nettle tops (Brennnessel), picked with gloves
- 30 g1 1/2 handfuls ground elder (Giersch), young leaves
- 25 g1 handful chickweed (Vogelmiere)
- 20 g1 handful wild garlic (Bärlauch)
- 20 g1 handful young dandelion leaves (Löwenzahn)
- 15 g1 small handful sorrel (Sauerampfer)
- 15 g1 small handful ribwort plantain (Spitzwegerich), young leaves
- 15 g1 small handful daisy leaves (Gänseblümchen), keep the flowers for garnish
- 5 ga few sprigs ground ivy (Gundelrebe) or white dead-nettle (Taubnessel), ground ivy is strong; use little
- 1 tbsp clarified butter (Butterschmalz) or butter
- 2 onions, finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp caraway seeds
- 3 (350 g)3 (12 oz) floury potatoes, peeled, in small cubes
- 1.25 l5 1/4 cups water or light vegetable broth
- 1 tbsp fenugreek seeds, optional, for an Alpine-style seasoned water
- 150 ml2/3 cup heavy cream (Schlagobers)
- salt or herb salt, black pepper, a little nutmeg
- to serve: daisy flowers, fried bread cubes
Method
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1. Wash the herbs well in several changes of cold water, pick off tough stems, and chop them finely. Keep the nettles apart if you are handling them bare-handed; chopping and cooking remove the sting.
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2. If using fenugreek, bring the water to a boil with the seeds, simmer 5 minutes, let it steep 5 minutes more and strain. Otherwise just heat the water or broth.
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3. Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium-low heat, add the onions with a pinch of salt and the caraway, and soften them for 5 minutes without browning.
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4. Add the potatoes and the hot liquid, bring to a boil and simmer for 12 to 15 minutes, until the potatoes break when pressed.
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5. Add the chopped herbs and simmer for only 3 to 5 minutes, until wilted and bright green; longer cooking dulls the colour and the taste.
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6. Purée the soup until smooth, stir in the cream and warm through without boiling.
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7. Season with salt, pepper and a grating of nutmeg. Serve at once, scattered with daisy flowers, with fried bread cubes alongside.
Notes
- Total time: 45 min, plus gathering the herbs.
- The nine herbs are whatever grows in early spring where you live; the number matters more than the list. Others used: watercress, garlic mustard, cuckooflower, wood avens, yarrow, chervil, Good King Henry. A Franconian or Swiss cook's list differs from a Salzburg one.
- Forage only plants you can identify with certainty. Wild garlic can be confused with poisonous lily of the valley and autumn crocus, and ground elder with toxic members of the carrot family. Lesser celandine (Scharbockskraut) appears in old lists but becomes toxic as it flowers; it is safer to leave it out.
- Without wild herbs, use spinach or chard as the bulk with sorrel, watercress, parsley, chives and chervil; the soup is milder and less bitter.
- Simpler older versions skip the potato: the herbs are softened in butter, simmered briefly in broth and puréed, then served with croutons. Some thicken with a little flour browned with the onion, or with an egg yolk instead of cream.
- It is a meatless dish, suited to Maundy Thursday as a fast day in Holy Week; a boiled egg is sometimes served with it.
- Best eaten freshly made; the green fades if it is kept warm or reheated.
Adapted from Monika Rosenstatter, Neunkräutersuppe, SalzburgerLand Magazin, 9erlei Kräuter-Suppe (Gründonnerstagssuppe), Tips Freistadt, and Gründonnerstag, Katholischer Familienverband Österreichs (familie.at).
At the festivals
Served at 1 festival in Germany.
Earlier editions
- November 15, 2025