40+ Edible Flowers (and How to Use Them)When I was a small child, I ate a significant part of one of our hedge bushes, and my mom was quite concerned. She always believed that bush smelled funny, and must be toxic. After I'd eaten it, she searched high and low to distinguish it to make sure I'd be ok, only to discover that the strange hedge was actually a rosemary bush in bloom…
List of Edible Flowers
If you're just looking to get a quick list, here is a quick set of edible flowers below. If you're looking for some tasty recipes for making use of each flower, or wondering that they taste, continue reading my buddies.
Angelica
Hibiscus
Hollyhock
Honeysuckle
Hostas
Lavender
Lilac
Linden
Marshmallow
Meadowsweet
Milkweed
Nasturtium
Peonies
Phlox
Rose
Sunflowers
Tulips
Violets
Angelica
An old fashioned flower garden favorite, Angelica has become grown and eaten because the ancient. The beautiful flowers are themselves edible, and you'll eat them right out inside garden.
How does angelica taste? Floral, with hints of anise and carrot, along with a little bit of mild bitterness.
The flower stalks will often be candied, and yes it was a popular confection in the dark ages in Europe. According to Hank Shaw at Honest Food, here's steps to make candied angelica :
First, you have to know what candied angelica is. It is a very old type of candy. Flavor and structure emanates from the herb stems, sweetness from cane sugar. The stems are blanched, then soaked in heavy syrup, boiled in this syrup, soaked again — repeatedly — until they turn translucent. You then dry the stems a bit and roll them in caster sugar.”
Angelica is also a medicinal flower, plus it was revered because herb of angels” historically. According to WebMD , Angelica is employed to treat heartburn, flatulence, loss of appetite, bed wetting, arthritis, stroke, dementia, circulation problems, anxiety, fever, and insomnia. Quite their email list! They also note that it absolutely was used historically to get the menses,” so do not eat it in case you are pregnant.
We don't grow angelica inside garden, but I found a wild patch beside well known summertime swimming hole this past year. This summer, I'm looking forward to harvesting some of our own and trying out these angelica recipes:
Angelica Flowers
Anise Hyssop
A favorite of the bees, Anise Hyssop has a wonderful scent that fills a garden in midsummer. The flowers and instead gives off have a very delicate black licorice flavor that's pleasant although not overwhelming. They're tasty fresh, or you can add anise hyssop blossoms to baked goods as well. Try any of these anise hyssop recipes:
Anise hyssop during my garden. It's a favorite of bumblebees.
Bachelor's Buttons
Bee Balm
There are lots of ways to use bee balm , from teas to salves and herbal steams, however they are also wonderful eaten simply as salad toppers or in a fairly easy floral jelly.
Begonia
With a bright citrus taste and a hint of sour, begonias are a flavorful edible flower that's quite versatile. They could be eaten alongside savory or sweet dishes as well. Eat the weeds notes that begonia blossoms and instead gives off are tasty raw, and how the stalks could be cooked like rhubarb.
Try all of these begonia recipes:
Borage
With a flavor reminiscent of fresh cucumbers, borage flowers will often be added to cool summertime drinks. While the edible flowers have a tendency to get all the attention, borage leaves may also be edible and make a lovely salad green. The greens can be served cooked, and included with anything as opposed to spinach.
Hank Shaw features a pretty thorough help guide cooking borage , at the same time as a borage soup recipe Here certainly are a few more borage recipes to hold you cooking:
Black Locust
In the late spring and early summer, our black locust trees are covered with fragrant white blossoms. For about 2-3 weeks each and every year, you are able to smell them from many yards away. You can also hear” them, as the trees attract countless bees which they apparently hum much more bloom.
The bees know the location where the good things is, of course, if it is possible to manage it, select a few from the edible blossoms to generate black locust fritters ! While that is the most popular method to enjoy these fragrant edible flowers, additionally, there are some more black locust recipes make an attempt:
Calendula
The beautiful orange/yellow flowers of calendula come up with a beautiful annual within the flower garden, in addition to their bright edible flower petals add color to all method of dishes. For the most part, they add bright colors to recipes, although not lots of flavor. They're used to create these bright natural herbal cupcake sprinkles , as well as the petals are beautiful in these Calendula and thyme shortbread cookies
A well-known herbal medicinal, calendula is frequently used topically to deal with skin issues. We utilize a calendula infused oil on burns, however it is also anti-inflammatory, antiviral, anti-fungal, anti-microbial, and astringent. This makes it the ideal choice for an all-purpose calendula salve
Beyond its external uses, calendula is also used internally to treat muscle spasms, sore throat, menstrual cramps and stomach complaints ( source ).
Calendula flower can be used to prevent muscle spasms, start menstrual periods, reducing fever. dried edible flowers can be used by treating sore throat and mouth, menstrual cramps , cancer, and stomach and duodenal ulcers. Calendula has been employed for measles, smallpox, and jaundice.
A calendula flower inside my garden from last summer, before my kids gobbled it.
Carnations
While they certainly are a high spray crop popular in floral arrangements, they can be grown without any chemicals in an organic manner…which's the best position to attempt eating them. Carnations may be used in many of the same ways as roses, plus they impart a sweet/spicy flavor, with their perfumed aroma. If you're growing unsprayed carnations in your garden, try some of these carnation recipes:
Chamomile
Best known as a straightforward relaxing herbal tea, chamomile can even be utilized to add a warm, sunny floral flavor to baked goods. Most people know how chamomile tea tastes understanding that same flavor infuses into cakes, jams scones, and buns. Try some of these delectable chamomile recipes:
Edible chamomile flowers
Chickory
Chives (and Other Alliums)
Chive greens add an onion flavor, and they also're an ideal topping sprinkled in addition to a baked potato. Chive blossoms may also be edible, and while they taste similar, they actually do have a very flavor all of their own. That same spicy allium flavor combines with subtle floral notes to produce certainly one of my favorite edible flowers.
I often eat them raw straight out in the garden, that gives me a quick pick me up and gets me moving. They're often added to salads, or preserved in chive blossom vinegar or chive blossom butter.
Chrysanthemum
When things turn cold during foliage season in Vermont, every food store, home improvement center, nursery and tourist trap creates the same chalkboard sign advertising Hardy Mums!” I don't know why, I know it's juvenile, nevertheless it always makes me chuckle, bringing to mind some exceptionally robust and hardy grandmotherly figures.
Most people around these parts purchase them within the fall and leave them in pots as decorations until early winter, and then compost them. A neighbor informed me that they're actually perennials, reality he's approximately 80, he admitted to dumpster diving to rescue discarded mums.
But much more exciting…they're edible flowers too!
Chrysanthemum greens certainly are a cooked vegetable in Asian cuisine, along with the edible flowers can be made into chrysanthemum tea. Here certainly are a few recipes to test:
Edible Flowers on a Chrysanthemum
Clover
Red clover and white clover are both sweet edible flowers that could be harvested in huge quantities in the summer months. The flowers themselves could be dried and ground to generate clover flour which adds nutrition helping extend flour supplies during tough times.
The base of each clover flower produces a little bit of sweet nectar, and many country kids know how to harvest clover flowers, peel back the leaves and obtain a drop of sweet honeydew from each flower. Personally, I just eat them whole in season for a sweet garden treat that tastes somewhat like snap peas.
Beyond fresh clover flowers and ground clover flour, the blossoms can try to be put into baked goods whole. Try some of these clover recipes:
Daisy (Bellis perennis)
I'm always excited when I see daisy greens showing up inside early spring. They come out early, and though they're somewhat bitter, I'm happy to eat them as the snow is melting back our northern climate. Later on inside year, daisies are bright sunny edible flowers that increase the beauty than taste.
The flowers are slightly bitter, and I don't find them particularly tasty. My young daughter, alternatively, can't get enough of them. Perhaps it's actually a a few taste buds, or even it is simply she loves their beauty enough to forgive their flavor.
Generally, edible daisy flowers are utilized raw like a garnish.
Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis)
A biennial plant within the broccoli family, Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) is as edible because other garden brassica. It goes by many names, including dame's rocket, damask-violet, dame's-violet, dames-wort, dame's gilliflower, night-scented gilliflower, queen's gilliflower, rogue's gilliflower, summer lilac, sweet rocket, mother-of-the-evening, and winter gilliflower.
Though it's quite just like tall perennial Phlox (Phlox paniculata), they are not the identical plant. Dame's Rocket has 4 petals, while Phlox has 5. Incidentally, it's phlox look-alike is also edible, hence the distinction doesn't really matter much so far as edible flowers go.
Generally, the leaves are eaten before the plant flowers, and so they're combined with salads. The flower buds are cooked and eaten like broccoli raab, and also the edible flowers can be eaten raw or used like a garnish.
Forager Chef features a great article on foraging and cooking with Dame's Rocket if you're looking for specifics.
Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) Edible Flowers ( Image Source )
Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale)
Dandelion greens are one with the first spring greens, and so they're bitter right whenever your demands a amount of a pick me up following a winter of heavy foods. They can be included in dishes, similar to this homemade dandelion pasta made with the greens right within the noodles. important source are medicinal, used internally as being a dandelion tincture for skin and urinary tract problems or externally in salves, massage oils and lotion bars for muscle aches.
Every part is edible. The greens in many cases are cooked into savory dishes, or eaten raw to provide some bitter to salads. Dandelion roots are cooked like carrots, or dried, roasted after which ground in a dandelion coffee substitute The flowers tend to be converted to traditional dandelion wine , and my children love dandelion flower ice cream
Daylilies
Elderflower
While elderflowers are delicious, and a truly certainly one of a kind taste, generally I leave them on the plants because I want more elderberries. We make elderberry jam each year and it's among my top picks. That said, elderflower vino is in my homebrewing bucket list, and also this elderflower strawberry mead looks out of this world. Simple elderflower fritters are one with the most popular solutions to eat them beyond winemaking.
Though I've yet to attempt it, I've read that storing apples packed with elderflowers infuses flavor in to the apples when they're in the root cellar. At least in line with the book Preserving Food without Canning or Freezing , the resulting apples taste like pineapple. That must have seemed pretty magical 200 years ago…
Here really are a few more modern elderberry recipes to try:
Fireweed
I'm told that fireweed jelly is a big hit in Alaska, the location where the blossoms are utilized to mark the advancement of summer. They start blooming towards the bottom and work their way up as the season progresses. Generally, these flowers are wild foraged, that is no problem given that they often grow in huge patches (once you choose one, there's more nearby). The trick is, they might require a cool climate.
Beyond a jelly with the edible flowers, I've just read that the leaves of fireweed may be made into a tea substitute. According to Honest Food, You make fireweed tea by stripping the leaves from the stalks, bruising them for some reason, letting them oxidize and ferment, then drying and storing them. This is about the same way traditional tea is made.”
Forsythia (Forsythia sp.)
These bright yellow blossoms burst forth in firey bushes, well ahead of the leaves emerge. I've always wanted one since they signal spring like nothing else here in the north country. I recently got a chance to use the blossoms from the neighbor, even though they're beautiful, I found them pretty tasteless. Maybe we were holding past their peak? Maybe it's a variety thing.
I can't say, but recipes with all the edible flowers from forsythia are quite common and other's manage to enjoy their flavor:
Cherry Forsythia Scones ~ Healing Harvest Homestead
Forsythia Jelly ~ The Free Range Life
Forsythia Syrup ~ Grow Forage Cook Ferment
Fruit Blossoms (Apple, Cherry, Strawberry, etc)
The flowers of many fruiting timber are edible long before they set fruit. The problem is if you eat the flowers they don't develop into fruit. This is a good approach to thin a crop in case your apple tree is over-producing. Thinning the blossoms ensures how the remaining fruit is going to be larger so helping prevent stress about the tree.
You will get edible flowers on apples, cherries, plums, citrus, and several other trees. Fruiting shrubs like strawberries, honeyberries , and blueberries may also be edible. They're not used all that often in recipes since the majority of people prefer fruit to edible flowers, but here certainly are a few ideas:
Hibiscus
Hollyhock
Honeysuckle
I intercourse honeysuckle syrup because it's simple to make and versatile, there is however lots of uses of honeysuckle:
Beyond just being edible, honeysuckle can be medicinal. A honeysuckle extract, similar to this homemade honeysuckle glycerite , may be used to treat sore throat, cool hot flashes and ease respiratory infections.
Keep at heart that unlike some in the other edible flowers with this list, where many parts with the plant are edible, other elements of honeysuckle are toxic. Do not eat honeysuckle berries later inside season, just continue with the fragrant early season edible flowers.
Hostas
Later within the season, their edible flowers taste sweet and floral. They might be put into salads, eaten beyond control, or fried up into tasty fritters.
Lavender
I often think of lavender as simply a scent for body products, like this homemade lavender soap , lavender salt soak , lavender oatmeal bath , and even a lavender face mask Adding lavender to food works just also, which enable it to develop a really unique taste.
Lavender goes particularly well with chocolate or honey during my opinion, however, there is a lot of ways to use it…
Lilac
There can be a lot of creative ways to cook with lilacs, here are a few suggestions to get you going:
Seeking more? Here are 20+ Lilac Recipes for each and every meal, both savory & sweet.
Linden
Beyond that, here are a few linden flower recipes to attempt:
Marshmallow
If you want to test to make your own herbal marshmallows with just marshmallow plants and honey, you can find detailed instructions in the book Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods from Dirt to Plate Marshmallow plants grow wild around the globe, so they're actually foraged also as grown right in the flower garden.
Meadowsweet
Meadowsweet is light and floral, and it's often used inside the same way as elderflowers. According to Learning Herbs , it's also your house fix for pain and fever.
Milkweed
It's becoming more common to plant milkweed in flower beds, as a nice gesture to the monarch butterflies, but also simply because they're beautiful and smell wonderful. Knowing they're edible flowers is more reason to plant them within your flower garden.
The edible species is usual milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). There are some reports that common milkweed is toxic, knowning that goes back to your foraging book through the 1970s where an author actually misidentified a plant thinking it was milkweed (dogbane as opposed to milkweed). That species is toxic, and tastes horrible.
Since then, hundreds of resources have just copied that information without checking, each one says it's unpalatably bitter.” While dogbane is horribly bitter and toxic, common milkweed isn't, that incorrect information may be perpetuated for decades.
As always, with any wild edible make use of your best judgment and consult plenty of sources prior to making a decision to consume it, don't take my word correctly. In any case, you will find toxic look-alikes for common milkweed, so be 100% sure on your identification too…
Beyond the edible flowers, there can be a number of other edible parts on milkweed such as the shoots, flower buds, leaves, seed pods, and immature seeds. All parts should be cooked before eating.
If you are looking for other milkweed eating resources, here can be a few:
Eating Milkweed from The Maine Organic Farmer's Association
I've tried cooking the young shoots, the flower buds, the flowers, the seed pods and the young seeds themselves. All were wonderful, but each an absolutely different vegetable.
Edible flowers on a common milkweed
Nasturtium
One from the best known edible flowers, nasturtiums are annual flowers commonly grown for adding spice and color to salads. The buds of nasturtium flowers may be made into capers , and the flowers can be pretty versatile. Try these nasturtium recipes :
Peonies
Phlox (Phlox paniculata)
While low growing creeping Phlox is toxic, the tall sort of perennial phlox (Phlox paniculata) is edible and resembles Dame's Rocket. The main difference is phlox has 5 petals, while dame's rocket has 4.
The flowers are slightly spicy, and they're often used in salads.
Roses
Fresh rose petals taste wonderfully floral, and you'll add these phones salads or eat them beyond control. I find that adding a little sugar produces a truly divine treat. I make a simple rose cordial from rose blossoms, sugar and a bit of citric acid for tartness. That simple rose cordial is fantastic for flavoring all means of things, and I apply it to produce rose soda for my daughter in the summer months. It can also add rose flavor to more grown-up drinks. They're also wonderful in baked goods or drinks, as with these rose recipes:
Scented Geraniums
Another edible flower that tastes exactly like they smell, scented geraniums include a delightfully floral flavor to dishes.
Sunflowers
Sunflowers are grown because of their seeds at the same time as their beautiful flowers, however the flowers themselves are actually edible. Young sunflowers could be prepared and cooked like artichokes before they're fully open. Forager Chef has a wonderful article with this, aptly titled How to Cook Sunflower Buds Like an Artichoke”
Once the flowers open fully, the flowers are still edible, they're just trickier to work with. Try using the petals to include color to recipes.
Like many edible flowers, the rest from the plant is additionally edible. Sunflower sprouts are a couple of the best micro greens, and mature sunflower leaves are technically edible also.
Tulips
Tulip flowers are edible, just like tulip bulbs. this hyperlink arrived handy during WWII when people in Holland were forced to cook their prized tulip bulbs like potatoes when food ran short. This recipe for tulip bulb soup still survives, but by all accounts, tulip bulbs are not tasty. They're a greater portion of survival food than whatever else. The edible flowers, alternatively, certainly are a real treat.
Tulip petals vary quite somewhat by variety, some sweet, others a tad spicy. According to Eat the Weeds , They can have numerous flavors: Bland, beans, peas, and cucumbers. Pink, peach and white blossoms will be the sweetest, red and yellow the most flavorful. While you can use these to garnish salads their more common use is to carry appetizers or dip. If you use the complete blossom cut off of the pistil and stamens from the center of the blossom. The ends of the petals may also be bitter so cut them off also when used individually.”
I also found a help guide the tastiest tulip varieties , most of which are red & white striped.
A word of caution, tulips might cause contact dermatitis in some people, so take care. I've never had a worry with these, and my children love the intense petals.
This year I made chocolate mousse filled tulip cups like a spring treat (happy mother's day in my experience!), but I've also found a few other tulip recipes to share. Unfortunately, it is popular to slice a cherry tomato in a decorative way to make it appear to be a tulip, then when you search edible tulip recipes, these mock tulips are virtually all you can find. Still, I dug deep and discovered a number of lovely ideas for you:
Violets
Toxic Flowers
While there are a lot of tasty edible flowers to be found in the garden, you will find plenty of toxic flowers too. This is by no way a comprehensive list, but here are a few toxic flowers to stop:
Azalea
Daffodil
Dogbane
Henbane
Hyacinth
Hydrangea
Oleander
Wisteria
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