Edible Flowers for Cooking & Garnishing
The practice of cooking and garnishing with edible flowers has been around since the days of Julius Caesar. It is back in trend again. Edible flowers can be used creatively on most dishes. They can be sprinkled on a salad, incorporated into a cocktail or ice cubes, candied into a cake. Here is our guide to the 10 best edible florets.
These flowers add beauty to the plate and flavor to your salads. They have a mild cucumber flavor like sweet honey taste and mildly salty. The edible flower has a delicate texture and is available year around. They are star-shaped flowers and taste delicious in lemonade and cocktails.
This edible flower is called “poor man’s saffron” and does taste like saffron when sautéed in olive oil to release its flavor. You can make a calendula oil infusion or use the uncooked Calendula petals to eggs, meatballs and milkshakes. The uncooked Calendula petals have slightly spicy taste.
The Zucchini Blossoms are bright yellow in color and have a delicate and slightly sweet taste. Enjoy them in the classic way- stuffed with herbs and goat cheese or on a pizza with fresh pesto.
Hibiscus petals are both tart and sweet and have a cranberry-like flavorthat makes them perfect for teas and cocktails. The slightly acidic petals can be sparingly used in salads or as garnish.
The flowers are sweet and slightly perfumed. They can be sprinkled in champagne and cocktails, and over desserts like chocolate cake.
These gorgeous looking flowers are slightly peppery in taste, like watercress. These are perfect to use in rice paper rolls in summer. You can also stuff a whole flower with a savory mousse or enjoy with beef carpaccio.
A Slightly grassy, minty flavor, so they work well in herb-flavored summer cocktails and fruit salads. For a quick snack, spread some cream cheese on a cracker and top it with a whole pansy.
Roses lend themselves well to everything from soups, salads, teas, jams and desserts. You can freeze them in ice cubes and float them in punches. Rose petals can be used in syrups, jellies, perfumed butters and sweet spreads. You can remove the white portion of the petals which is bitter.
Sage flowers with their sweet-savory flavor add dimension to variety of dishes like popsicle.
A perfect companion for salads and iced drinks. They taste sweet and floral. They can be crystallized and used to top frosted cakes and desserts.
