I love edible flowers! They are pretty, fun, and can take any recipe to the next level without a whole lot of effort. Edible flowers can be hard to find at the grocery store, especially if you are looking for a specific flower or flavor profile, so growing them at home is the best way to ensure you have what you want when you want it. Bonus, they are easy to grow yourself and can make your garden look lovely!
Knowing which flowers are edible – there are a lot – is the first step but when trying out a new flower, I alway get stuck trying to figure out how to eat them. Do you eat them whole? Just the petals? What about the green bits at the base? And what would I put them in? What do they taste like? Are they better sweet or savory?
To help you take the guess work out of edible flowers, I have put together my list of favorites, what they taste like, how to harvest them and, most importantly, how to eat them! These are flowers that I have personally grown, and eaten. Now, you can enjoy growing edible flowers too!
Nasturtiums
I grow these every year. Even if I don’t eat them, they are so pretty and I love to grow trailing varieties in a hanging basket. These have a peppery spice to them, similar to the bite of radish making them great on salads and sandwiches.
How to Harvest
You can eat the whole flower all the way to the stem. The flower has a tail that I keep on. It’s a bit studier than the petals and adds a little juicy crunch.
How to Eat
Best tossed into salads. Since the flavor is peppery, I use it on savory dishes. The petals are delicate so if they are being used in a hot dish, add them at the very end to avoid burning or over wilting.
Borage
I started growing borage as a way to attract bees to my garden for pollinating. Bees will flock to borage which will help the rest of your garden flourish as well.
How to Harvest
The green leaves just surrounding the flower, while just as edible, are a bit fuzzy, so I like to leave those behind and just take the petals, which will pop off as one piece if pulled gently.
How to Eat
Borage is great for adding color to any dish without affecting the flavor. Their taste is not very noticeable so feel free to add to salads, desserts, freeze in ice cubes for decorative beverages, or anything else.
Calendula
I do not often eat calendula flowers because I am too busy making calendula lotions, chap sticks, and diaper rash creams. Calendula is a medicinal plant that aids in healing cuts, burns, rashes, or scrapes. They can also be steeped in hot water for a delicious herbal tea that helps sooth sore throats, irritated stomachs, or intestinal tracts.
How to Harvest
What I am making will determine how I harvest the flower. When steeping for tea or making infused oils, I use the whole flower and some of the stem and leaves as well. When eating the flowers, I pinch off most of the green and just take the flower, or even pick off the petals to sprinkle on the dish because there is a dense center that I don’t particularly like the texture of.
How to Eat
While calendula does have a noticeable flavor (less so when just using petals), it is not particularly spicy or sweet so feel free to experiment with all kinds of dishes.
Basil Flowers
You may have guessed that these taste a lot like basil. Most often herbal flowers are just a mild decorative form of the herb, so you do not have to wonder about the flavor. Thyme, oregano, and sage are a few others that are great to try.
How to Harvest
Basil has small flowers that grow stacked up a stem. The flower, greenery, and stem are all edible and delicious. If you are planning to eat the whole thing, it may be good to check how tender the stem is. The further down the stem you go, the tougher it gets, which may be useful if you are wanting it to stand up like an edible bouquet.
How to Eat
Think about all the ways you would normally use basil and add in some flowers either instead of or in addition to. They would look and taste great in an herbed butter (adding them to our herb compound butter recipe would be delicious), can be cooked in a fluffy souffle, or still on the stem as a garnish on anything. I haven’t tried them in pesto as I think the oil will make the flowers look like mush, but you never know until you try!
Chive Flowers
Another in a long line of herb flowers. These are one of my favorites as they are beautiful, delicious, crunchy, and easy to grow.
How to Harvest
These can be harvested all the way to the stem. And, of course, the leaves are edible too. The stems that the flowers grow on get too tough quickly as they need to be sturdy enough to hold up the flower so I usually just pop the flower off. The flower easily comes apart into separate sections for sprinkling, or can be kept whole.
How to Eat
Definitely keep these for savory dishes. They have the same onion-y flavor as the chive leaves and would be a great addition to herbed butter allium bread. They can be added to salads, or as a garnish on any other savory dish. Because they are a bit sturdier, they can handle a bit of light cooking if you want to use them as a pizza topping, or add to a hot pan at the end of cooking another dish.
Dill Flowers
This is similar to basil in that the stem can get tough the further down you go and while it would make for a beautiful edible bouquet, the tastiest part is the delicate flower tips.
How to Harvest
The whole dill plant is edible, but by the time it has flowers, the stem is tough like little sticks. The best way to harvest flowers is to pick them off right at the base of the flower where it is still tender. The flowers are small and there are a bunch of them so to get them quickly I don’t worry about being gentle.
How to Eat
Mixed into potato salad and sprinkled on fish are probably my favorite ways to eat dill flowers, but they are also good basically any way you would use the dill herb.
Chamomile
This is traditionally used as an herbal tea, and for good reason as it makes wonderful tea. When growing it at home I keep it as a potted plant as it can spread like wildfire.
How to Harvest
Chamomile can be harvested by simply popping off the flowers at the base, or by cutting the stem to hang them to dry. I most often hang them to dry as I think they are most versatile as a dried herb.
How to Eat
When making tea, I just plop in the whole flower, but once dried they are easy to crumble into tiny pieces which I prefer when using when using in food. Their delicate flavor is best suited for sweet dishes, like cookies, or cakes, or added to oatmeal with cinnamon and fruit. Anther thing to do is steep them in hot water or milk and use that to infuse the flavor in things like frosting or pudding.
Squash Flowers
If you have ever grown squash, you likely know the feeling of drowning in squash. If you have just one plant it may not produce much, but once you start growing more than one each plant produces far more fruit. This is due to the increased likelihood of cross-pollinating male and female flowers. You can end up with so much squash you can’t even give it all away! A good way to stop from drowning in squash is to harvest the flowers.
How to Harvest
The flower can be harvested all the way to the stem, but how much of that you eat is up to personal preference. If you like the bit of crunch you can keep the base and the pistil inside the flower, or if you prefer a consistent soft texture you can cut those off and just leave the tender petals.
How to Eat
Squash flowers are quite sturdy and can withstand cooking or even light grilling. You can often find recipes for squash flowers on pizza or other baked entrees, since they are sturdy enough not to burn, but they do not have a particularly savory flavor so feel free to branch out into more sweet dishes as well. Try them stuffed with a cream cheese filling and baked.
Lavender Flowers
Is there anything lavender is not good for? Baking, lotions, tea, perfume, bath salts. The list could go on and on. Usually lavender you find in the store is the flower bud before it blooms, but if you have it growing at home there is no reason not to use it at any stage. If it has flowered, just be sure it hasn’t developed seeds yet, as those will be too hard to eat.
How to Harvest
The flowers can just be stripped off by pinching the stem and pulling it through your fingers. They are good fresh or can be dried and can be stored to be used year round.
How to Eat
Because they are small, they work well rolled into baked goods or can be infused in oil or water to extract the flavor. The flavor lends itself best to sweet dishes, and pairs very well with lemon.
Broccoli
Broccoli and other brassicas (like cabbage, kale, mustard greens) tend to get away from me in the garden. If they are not harvested in time, or if it gets hot faster than expected, they can bolt and go to flower. Luckily this is not the end of the plants usability because the flowers are edible too.
How to Harvest
Every part of the broccoli plant is edible. The only consideration is how tough the stem gets when it flowers. The further down or the older the plant, the tougher it gets, so don’t wait to harvest once it starts flowering. Of course they can be steamed, sautéed, or grilled just like you would normal broccoli. You can also just pluck off the flowers if the stem is too tough.
How to Eat
The stem is where most of the flavor is, and it tastes just like the vegetable and can be cooked in more or less the same way. Just keep in mind the stems are thinner and the flowers delicate so the cooking time should be shortened. If you’re just picking off the flowers, they are small enough and the flavor mild enough that they can be added to something savory or sweet without disrupting the flavor.
Rock Cress
Rock Cress is usually grown in gardens as a border or ground cover. The tiny purple, pink or white flowers are a lovely addition to a garden, and as an added bonus, they are edible too!
How to Harvest
Rock Cress is easy to grow and is perfect for beginner gardeners. To harvest for consumption, simply pop off the flowers, whole. The plant is covered in the small delicate flowers, so you can harvest again and again without changing the aesthetics of your garden.
How to Eat
The flavor or Rock Cress is very mild and can be added to savory or sweet dishes, primarily as decoration. Add a handful to a salad to add a beautiful punch of color. Or, add to the top of a sweet dish such as cakes for garnish.
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