Arugula is best in small doses IMO. If you put it in a salad, you can counteract the bitter taste with a vinaigrette salad dressing that has a fair amount of salt and maybe some balsamic vinegar. You can also use it on sandwiches (in small amounts) and omit the mustard. I use it in dishes where I want a peppery mustard flavor. I suppose you could saute a bit of it and serve it with sausage. I used to have it growing wild in my yard, and I still only ever used small amounts of it. I think of it almost more like an herb than a green vegetable because the flavor is so intense. I've put it in egg rolls and then did not need a mustard sauce for them.

Lars

I'd go for a sweet dressing. Something with orange juice, maybe. If you still don't like it, just let yourself off the hook :-)

Ha, doesn't sound like Arugula has a lot of fans.
The amount they put in the box is enough to feed an army, I suspect they are trying to get rid of it. :o)

I like that flavor which is sometimes referred to as peppery and is found in mustard, yu choy, cress, nasturtium, radish and the like. If you don't care for that flavor you probably won't like arugula.

Hot, spicy mustard greens get mild when cooked. I haven't cooked arugula, but why not try it? Dress with a little olive oil.

Jim

jimster, I love cress and radishes, but to me they taste spicy-peppery, whereas arugula just tastes bitter.

Maybe greens and beans, which I like to make with escarole, would be good made with arugula. Cook the greens with garlic, olive oil, a sprinkle of crushed red pepper and a little chicken broth. Combine the greens with white beans such as cannellini. Gild the lily by adding Italian sausage and/or use as a pasta topping.

Jim

Thanks for the tip, I'll try that for lunch tomorrow. Will post if it made the stuff edible. :o)

I imagine there is more than one variety of arugula because bitter is not a word I would ever use to describe the arugula that is available here. I would say peppery and nutty and my whole family loves it. The kids grab handfuls to munch on just plain. I posted a recipe in the new recipe review thread that is a fennel an arugula salad with an orange dressing, which has become a new fave. I'm seriously shocked to hear it called bitter. Maybe the different soil it was grown in? Maybe it's like cilantro - tastes different to different folks. I agree with the others - if you don't like it, don't invest any more time or money to try and make it palatable to you. Any rabbits in your neighbourhood?
Jane

I make beans and greens much like Jim, but use kale, so arugula might be a good substitute.

I'm not a big fan either, so I've never grown it nor cooked it. Good luck, it'll be interesting to see whether the flavor changes when it's cooked.

Annie

Could it be too far gone, bitter like lettuce after a hot spell? I hope so, because I just planted my first patch of arugula. We grew bowls of mixed salad greens this winter and what I thought was arugula was pretty tasty, so I bought some seed. I guess we'll see....

I think arugula is like cilantro in that you either love it or hate it. But in salad mixes, arugula adds a depth of flavor as do other bitter greens. I sold salad mixes for years and never had a single complaint from a single customer, and my mixes included a very wide range of greens beside lettuces.

I love baby arugula with an orange juice based dressing of olive oil, orange juice and zest, a splash of balsamic vinegar, garlic clove, salt and pepper. I usually add orange pieces, Maytag blue cheese or Asiago and some pine nuts to make a salad. The baby arugula has a nutty, peppery taste. I do not care for arugula that gets too large to me it is way too bitter. IMO sounds like the arugula you received was past its prime.

"----I imagine there is more than one variety of arugula because bitter is not a word I would ever use to describe the arugula that is available here. ---"

I have had some tasted so mild they were like spinach.

Grow your own. You can even do it in a pot by the window. The young leaves are very mild and tender.

Arugular pizza!!!!!!

dcarch

I was wondering if it had gone too long, too - maybe harvested too late in the season. But arugula has never tasted peppery or anything other than bland and soapy to me. I know some people describe cilantro as tasting like soap, but I've never noticed that flavor with cilantro, just arugula. And I do like cress, sorrel, and other strong greens. I can't 'splain it.

Sally

I love arugula. I think it tastes a little like sesame, and that the slight bitterness contrasts nicely with some fruit or a sweet dressing. I usually get baby arugula, though, and I'm also wondering whether it got bitter from heat. I've grown lettuce that was disgusting, awful, so bitter it makes your mouth water just to bite off a corner.

Hmmm, I wonder if age is the problem? The leaves are very large and definitely not young. Come to think of it, the organic salad mix I usually buy contains arugula, and I don't remember it being bitter at all. Last year, I also got really bitter cucumbers through this CSA. Might have to reevaluate participating next year, I think the extreme TX temps make it difficult to grow veggies of consistent quality.

I buy bags of baby arugula from Trader Joes and use it in all sorts of salad things. Wraps, on top of Mexican rice, sandwiches, etc.
Perhaps the baby kind is milder than the regular. It has a distinct taste, like spinach does, but one we like, and we eat lots of it straight- not mixed with other greens.
If you don't like it, I would throw it out. Consider it a lesson learned.

I won't waste calories on anything I don't love.

I have wondered, too,
If there are different varieties of Arugula.
I love it in the 'mixed herbs' salad mix I buy.
I love it so much, in fact,
That when I saw a container
(from the same company)
Of just Arugula,
I bought it.

It seems there are quite a few different
Leaf shapes in it.
All similiar,
Yet different.
Does that make sense?
And there seems to be slight differences if flavor, too.

To me, Arugula is not at all bitter.
I think maybe the sesame taste that someone mentioned
Might be the flavor that I couldn't quite put a name to.

Anyhow, I agree with everyone else,
If you really despise it,
Just pitch it.

I think I'm going to try the 'beans & greens' idea,
Before what I have here gets too old.

Rusty

Three cups arugula processed with one cup of mayo makes a nice spread for Giada's Turkey Meatloaf Sandwiches. (Yes, I find a way to push this recipe about once a year. I love it!) Maybe you could find other uses.

Here is a link that might be useful: Turkey Meatloaf Sandwiches

Jimster, I followed your recipe and it did not remove the bitter taste. So, am going to take the advice to just chuck it.
FOAS, with this stuff it would be a waste of perfectly good mayo. :o)

Sorry it didn't work out, Petra.

Sounds like the arugula was way past its prime.

CSA's don't appeal to me. I like to choose my vegetables, not get a surprise package. But then, I grow a good sized vegetable garden, so joining a CSA wouldn't make sense for me.

Jim

jimster, when we first moved here, we had a great veggie garden. That lasted for about 2 years, then came flooding, drought, wildly fluctuating temps, more flooding, and now major drought for the past several years. I feel for the CSA guys, it is so difficult to grow good produce in our area.

But hub and I haven't been thrilled with the produce and selection for the past couple years, so might reconsider next year. Plus, neither one of us is a fan of zucchini and squash, and that seems to be the mainstay once everything else fizzles out.

Sorry it was a bust! I too wonder if it may have been to mature... that seems to be a common problem for leafy greens. The one thing I absolutely can't stand is those "herb mixes" that some people pass off for salad. I have no idea what combination is in those that I don't like (I can usually identify all the leaves) because I seem to like them all individually, but mixed together they are awful to my taste.

oh well - live and learn and toss the old arugula if it shows up again!

Alexa

There are no cultivars of Arugula, though there is the one most people are familir with and a "rustic" arugula with more serrated leaves and a slightly stronger flavor. Both get much stronger as they get older. And they mature very quickly.

If it's too bitter it was almost surely past its prime. That's what happens with all salad greens. Growing and picking such delicate greens seems like a pretty difficult undertaking for a CSA. I have friends who grow greens for the NY restaurant market--in a greenhouse on trays so they can pick the greens young and fresh. It's labor intensive.

Years ago I fell in love with arugula when I had some in a mixed salad. Such a lovely, nutty flavor. So I planted some.

Oh boy.

The stuff grew like mad, and then bolted quickly. I made the mistake of deciding to let the seeds ripen to harvest for planting and then forgot to pick them before they scattered to the wind. Next year, I had arugula everywhere, springing up from cracks in the driveway, in between shrubs and flowers, in the lawn, even under my truck's utility shell that I had taken off for the Winter (the tiny, back door windows apparently providing enough light.

Every time I weeded, or just walked over the lawn or in the garden, the increasingly noisome (to me) aroma of crushed arugula permeated the air. All Summer I battled it, and learned to loathe the stuff.

Now, years later, I can eat it if it's in a salad mix, but....meh. :P

Petra, I didn't know you are in Texas. That explains it. It's way too hot for arugula now, and has been for probably at least a month. Your CSA should be supplying that and other cool season crops during the winter, and go to summer crops this time of year.

Sally

Sally, they are closed in winter, they start in mid-May and usually go until September, sometimes into October. Got some Swiss Chard in the box as well, and that was very good. But I am ready for peaches. :o)

Alexa, they sell the herb mixes here too. They do contain some type of strange-tasting green, I am not sure what it is. Maybe the cilantro. I do like the fresh dill they add.
lpink, it's gorgeous looking arugula, if it tasted as good as it looks, there'd be no problem.
Rachelellen, yuck, I wouldn't want to smell that all over the yard either. I could live with lavender or lemon grass going rogue, but not arugula.

Yeah, I know arugula isn't particularly delicate, it's just the way greens are. But it's so interesting the way certain things affect plant smells and tastes. Genetics of course play a role, but peppers and herbs actually like it kinda dry and poor soil for the most flavor chemicals to be produced. Nothing extreme of course. I think that's partly why I can't grow tasty oregano. It's lush, but has zero taste. On the other hand, my mint which likes it shadier and damp, is lush AND tasty. Too much nitrogen has some effect too, but I doubt they gave those greens too much nitrogen. I'm sure it was just a combination of factors. As a gardener you know how hard it is to turn out great results consistently. Honestly it seems like most of my good harvests have been just by chance like Rachelellens experience. One year my wolf tomatoes that sprung up in one section of my garden due to neglect, did well and were good, and my greenhouse ones died. It's almost Murphy's law that if I try to baby something it will have some type of dire fate, and the things I have zero expectations for end up doing well.

Two years ago I joined a CSA and had a similar experience with arugula. The leaves were the size of chard -- huge! They were bitter and tough. Unfortunately we got them week after week, and all I could do was toss them. Summer squash was the same. All overgrown with thick skin and giant, hard seeds. I was so disappointed in the produce quality that I decided to just shop at farmers markets. At least that way I could choose what I walked away with. I think it is hard to juggle the time when produce is ready to harvest and the times when deliveries or pick ups are made.

lpink, precisely. I babied the lavender last year, and it almost died. This year, I've been ignoring it and it is gorgeous. :o)
Shambo, I really do feel for the CSA people, especially in our climate. Stuff often shrivels and dries before it can even be harvested. And the major drought is not helping.
Got the newsletter for next week today and the lettuce bolted and arugula is off the list. :o)

JUst tested some over-ripe arugula, not too bad:

From garden cut stalk with pruners, picked off best leaves, chopped with scissors, one serving, sprinkled with salt, nuked almost min. Not as good as properly grown, picked-early arugula, but edible.