Edible Flowers For Salads
HOW TO START EATING FLOWERS
There's no reason for a salad to be mostly green, predictable and bland. Give cucumbers a rest and try a fresh kind of topping: edible flowers.
Bold yet common flowers like marigolds and nasturtiums are safe to eat, and when they're mixed into a salad, they add elegance, color and spice.
Here's a guide to help you start sampling edible flowers: where to find them, what they look like, and most important of all, what those pretty petals taste like.
POLL
Have you tried edible flowers?
WHAT DO EDIBLE FLOWERS TASTE LIKE?
- Marigold petals taste like mild lettuce.
- Nasturtium flowers are as spicy as they are colorful, yet they are not quite as strongly flavored as nasturtium leaves. There's also a bit of a sweet aftertaste to the flowers.
- Cilantro flowers, which come in clumps of tiny, frilly white blooms, taste just like fresh cilantro leaves, perhaps with an extra hint of pepper.
- Basil flowers, also white, have the same flavor as basil leaves, but it is much more intense.
- The petals of arugula flowers are pinkish-white and laced with purple-colored veins. The flavor of the petals is mild, but the base of the flower has the spicy-bitter flavor of arugula leaves.
DISCOVERING EDIBLE FLOWERS
If you're curious to try other edible flowers, you're in luck. The
blossoms of many common culinary herbs are safe to eat and will
complement salad greens. So are the flowers of other garden plants. Here are some more examples:
- Lavender: purple and spicy. Learn more about cooking with lavender.
- Sage: purple or blue.
- Mint: various colors. Learn more about growing mint.
- Squash blossoms: large and delicate flowers in shades of yellow and orange.
- Chives: purple-pink, spherical flowers.
CAUTION
Please be absolutely certain what you are putting in your mouth before sampling any flower! Plants with similar looks aren't always similarly safe to eat. For example, sweet peas, my favorite kind of sweet smelling flower, are not edible flowers. Yet the very similar-looking flowers of the garden pea plant are safe to eat.
- Be careful, and don't make assumptions.
WHERE TO FIND EDIBLE FLOWERS
Grow your own: Try growing your own edible flowers from seed. Nasturtiums, marigolds and many culinary herbs will thrive indoors on a sunny windowsill. A few $1 packet of seeds will produce enough blossoms to garnish salads for several months. If you plan to harvest flowers from herbs you grow yourself, note that some plants stop producing new growth after they are allowed to flower.
Buy edible flowers: Edible flowers are sometimes sold in boxes in the produce section of some supermarkets. In New York City, I've seen small boxes of edible flowers for $5 at the outdoor greenmarket in Union Square.
Know the source: Be cautious about eating flowers that are sold as anything other than food products. Even if the plant itself in edible, it may have been treated, handled or stored with chemicals that aren't so good for you.
QUIZ: Which flowers are safe to eat?
view quiz statisticsEDIBLE FLOWERS: RESOURCES
All the flowers described in detail above are ones I've sampled and lived to tell about, but don't just take my word for it. Seek out other reliable guides to safe, edible flowers. Here are some free resources:
"Edible Flowers," NC State University: Horticulture Information Leaflets
- This guide lists edible flowers by color and flavor, with warnings about which flowers are edible only in moderation.
- From the introduction: "Flowers have traditionally been used in many types of cooking:
European, Asian, East Indian, Victorian English, and Middle Eastern.
Early American settlers also used flowers as food. Today, there is a
renewed interest in edible flowers for their taste, color, and
fragrance."
"Edible Flowers," Colorado State University Extension
- This guide explains how to select and prepare flowers for culinary use. It also includes a list of common but toxic flowers.
- From the introduction: "Do not use flowers that have been sprayed with pesticides, which often
occurs along roadsides, or collect flowers from plants that have been
fertilized with untreated manure. Generally avoid purchasing flowers
from florists, garden centers or nurseries. These flowers are not grown
for consumption."
"Edible Flowers," National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
- From the introduction: "This publication discusses some of the basic production and marketing concerns for edible flowers and offers some cautions on non-edible or toxic flowers. Also included are sources of additional information on edible flowers, in print and on the Internet."
MORE ABOUT FLOWERS, HERBS AND GARDENS
- The One Window Herb Garden
Even if only one window in your house or apartment gets good light, it's possible to start an herb garden and find satisfaction in harvesting pinches and sprigs of your own homegrown herbs. - Sweet Smelling Flowers: 7 Kinds of Fragrant Flowers
A guide to fragrant, sweet-smelling flowers: From lilacs to freesias, these flowers are treat for the nose. - Starting a Culinary Herb Garden At Home
When you cultivate your own mix of fresh herbs, you'll be unconstrained by the varieties usually sold in a supermarket. The only limits are your time, patience and gardening skill. - Culinary Lavender
No spice lover should skip culinary lavender. That's especially so for spice fanatics who like a dash of hotness in their desserts. If you think mixing a bit of pepper into chocolate is an amazing idea, you may love baking with lavender. - Mints: From Chocolate Mint To Peppermint
Mints are hardy, versatile herbs that come in a wildly varied range of shapes and flavors. Take fresh pineapple mint. It's as different from peppermint as it is from Standard Issue Toothpaste. - Spring Flowers in Central Park
Spring flowers aren't impossible to find in New York City. April is the best month to see magnolias, tulips and lilacs in bloom in Central Park.
Comments
i love squash flowers, best when deep fried. :)
Wow what a wonderful way to make food attractive and delicious. In South Africa we have a flower called a Water Blommetjie (translated: Small water flower) that is edible. It is also known as Cape-pondweed, Water Hawthorn, Vleikos and Cape Pond Weed and is an aquatic flowering plant. Voted interesting.
I've always wondered about this subject. I went to a party once where the host had added edible flowers to her salad and I never forgot it. Now I'm intrigued and will have to grow my own just for eating! Thank you...voted up and awesome.
Fun quiz and interesting hub. I just wish some of the flowers tasted as sweet and fun as they look:) I was quite surprised at how bitter and spicy some can be!
I love salads and flowers. This was really informative and enjoyable. Thanks!
This is one of the best hubs I've ever read. Thanks for all of the work and the great and useful information.
This is a great article. Thanks for some new information all in one place and with the necessary warnings attached. I like to try to keep a tradition at Easter of always making a lovely two layer cake with white icing and colorful pansy petals all over it. I start growing the pansies from seed in plenty of time so they will be ready for Easter.
We were just talking about growing some edible flowers in our garden, so I was particularly excited to see this article. Have bookmarked to follow up on at my leisure. Thank you!
Nice hub, edible flowers really add color and a special feeling to a meal. Thanks for sharing your insight and congrats on being selected as one of this week's "Best Hub" nominees. Good luck to you!
Dearest E. A. Wright, Can I please just say thank you for this hub? I absolutely LOVE seeing something I've always seen, done in a completely different way, in other words revolutionizing the norm. The closest I've come to flower eating is fried zucchini flowers in Italy (yummy). Maybe others have had the privilege of seeing flowers in salads before but this is a first for me. Thank you for sharing and in so much detail, I'm going to see if my grocery store has these flowers. Thanks again!
love it, they do wonders to a salad, really creative!
This is an interesting hub. Once I believed that edible flowers were those we make from almond or sugar paste that look like real flowers.What are some of the nutritional benefits from these edible flowers
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