Decorate your Food: Six Spicy Edible Flowers

I love decorating my food with edible flowers; they transform an ordinary meal into a celebration. Yes it is the simple things in life that matter these days…..

Edible flowers are beautiful but many of them don’t have a lot of flavor. I like to use edible flowers that have a little spicy kick to them. Not only are they beautiful, but they add a good dollop of flavor to our meals.

I like to harvest edible flowers a couple of hours before eating them. I don’t usually wash them because the flowers can quickly go limp after washing. Make sure you harvest from a clean ground where dogs and cats don’t frequent.

Do you really want to know why I let the flowers sit for an hour or more before eating them? To allow time for the bugs to crawl off!

Harvest your edible flowers, shake them off, then put them into a bowl or basket and let them sit outside in the shade for an hour, weather permitting. Just give the critters a little time to find another home.

Edible flowers don’t last for too long. You can store them in a bag or jar with a piece of damp paper towel. But really after a day or two they start to lose their vitality.

Garnish and decorate your food with your fresh, edible flowers just before the food is served. I love serving a dinner bursting with color that dances on the plate. The vibrant orange and purple colors always illicit comments from the person dining on them. I really feel that a meal becomes more of a special occasion when it is adorned with edible flowers and try to do it as often as I can.

These are my favorite spicy flowers that I use to enhance the flavor of our food and the beauty in our daily lives.

 

Thyme flowers

Thyme flowers are tiny and come in varying shades of white, pink and purple. You can use the flower of any variety of time that is used for cooking.

The biggest consideration in using this flower is that some are just too small to use. There are over 60 edible varieties of thyme, find one that has a larger flower, or harvest the flowers in small clumps.

Thyme flowers have a dense, spicy flavor that is a wonderful garnish for just about any savory dish. I love to sprinkle tiny pieces of thyme flowers on top of rice, quinoa or millet dishes.

We eat soup once a week and in the winter we eat it more. I like to decorate my soups just before serving them and thyme flowers are the perfect addition to soups and stews. They add spice and I also just love eating purple flowers!

Nasturtium

Nasturtium flowers have a spicy, piquant flavor that leaves a hot, biting after taste. By themselves they can be a little sharp for some people, but I can eat them by the handful! You can munch on the flowers when they are first budding or when the flower is fully opened. The brightness of color gives a vibrant flair to your food that people enjoy.

You can gently cut the large nasturtium flowers with scissors and garnish any savory dish or salad with the bright golden petals. I like to use the large flowers like a shell and stuff them with quinoa pilaf, tabouleh or tuna salad. Stuff each flower and then serve them on a platter as finger food.

Try putting whole nasturtium flowers on a sandwich just like you would add tomatoes or lettuce. I like to use nasturtiums instead of pickles.

Garlic chives

Who doesn’t like a splash of pink on their plate?! Garlic chives, also called society garlic produce white, pink or purple flowers that will perk up any meal. I love mixing golden mustard flowers and purple garlic chive flowers together and garnishing a fresh green salad with them just before eating.

Garlic chives are delicious layered into sandwiches or salad wraps. We put them in our home made spring rolls and kale salads. I have so many chive flowers growing that I like to just snack on them while working in the garden.

Garlic chives are in the same family as onions and garlic and contain the same healing constituents as its other family members. Garlic chives are anti-microbial and adding them to your diet can help you fight of colds.

Any food that you add raw onions to, you can put garlic chives into the mix.

Wild mustard

Mustard flowers grow in clumps of little flowers. I like to cut all the little flowers away from the stem and use them to decorate any lunch or dinner plate. Just sprinkle a couple tablespoons of the yellow flowers over the entire plate and each bite will have a little spicy zip to it.

Fresh mustard flowers are a nice seasoning to put on top of savory breads, corn bread, any kind of potato dish and creamed soups.

As you know from eating mustard as a condiment, this plant imparts a spicy, hot zip to food. Mustard flowers help to clear the sinuses and lungs. Mustard flowers are also helpful for fighting colds as they have antibacterial properties.

Wild radish

Wild radish flowers are delicate and don’t really last more than a day once they are picked. Pluck them fresh and put them in your salad. They are spicy and pungent and will soon become one of your favorite spicy edible flowers.

This paper thin flower is found in white and all shades of pink and purple. Sprinkle it on top of egg dishes or add its invigorating flavor to any rice dish.

Wild radish blossoms will spice up your digestive tract. The hot flavor increases the flow of blood to your digestive system and helps you to absorb the nutrients in your food more efficiently. Why aren’t edible flowers more popular in our cuisine! They are beautiful, tasty, medicinal and enhance digestion!

I guess we could call this Flower Power.

Oregano

Oregano flowers are hot and spicy. The flowers are tiny but the will add a significant zip to any dish you add them too. You only need a few to season your food with. Add small clumps of oregano flowers to soups and salads.

Oregano flowers are delicious mixed with butter or cream. Mix two tablespoons of fresh oregano flowers into one stick of butter and use it to butter your corn or bread with. Use the oregano butter on top of steamed vegetables or as a base for sautéing onions.

Oregano flowers are yummy when used to garnish hummus, pita bread sandwiches or even your hamburger! Any recipe that calls for oregano, try adding oregano flowers also.

As beautiful as they are, not all flowers are edible. Some flowers such as daffodils can make you sick. As with all forays into foraging and using herbs, be sure to have one hundred percent accurate identification of which plant you are going to ingest.

When adding edible flowers to your food make sure that you sprinkle them on just before eating. If they sit in the salad dressing or on top of hot food for too long they just become mush. Believe me; mushy radish flowers just don’t look that appetizing.

Learn how to identify and use beautiful and delicious edible flowers and herbs! Sign up for Edible and Medicinal Flowers Herb Walk and Video Tutorial