Submitted by marionhosta1 on Sat, 05/31/2008 - 14:45.
In my patio garden I have jasmine and honeysuckle as well as some daylilies. I have read that these are edible, and can make a great addition to dishes both as a garnish, or as part of the ingredients. My mother always made jasmine tea, but I want to find some flowers that look good and are edible. I think most people know you can eat dandelions, but really, who would want to!? I have some lilac planted around my adirondack loveseat, any word on whether or not those are tasty and useful for some home and garden party dishes?
You can eat daylilies
Yes, you can eat daylilies! I have put them into soups and salads, they have a slightly sweet lettuce-y taste. Wash the daylilies and peel off the petals of the flower. That is the part you can eat. You can toss daylily petals in with lettuce when making a salad and it gives your salad wonderful color and your guests will be surprised that they are eating a flower! You can also place some daylily petals on top of a bowl of soup right before serving it. One other thing you can do with daylilies is to freeze the petals and place them at the last minute in an ice cold drink. They look especially pretty in a clear glass of 7-up.
Tiptoe through the tulips
Edible flowers
The first edible flower that came to my mind was nasturtium. They're great in salads, and I've also seen them used in desserts, mainly to dress up the icing on a cake. I did make the mistake once of eating them when I had a canker sore--owwww! What a sting!
From my own garden I've taken rosa rugosa petals and added them to salads. I prefer the white to the pink, as the pink ones are perfumey but the white ones are more spicy. I used to have a yellow beach rose that had a wonderful clove flavor, but I lost it one harsh winter and I haven't been able to find that type of plant since.
Chive flower is another one that will certainly add some powerful flavor to dishes--but don't use a heavy hand, since it packs a lot into that little flower--you may be chewing mints nonstop the next day!!
Some other flowers you can eat
The squash flower has a slightly sweet taste. You can lightly coat it with cornmeal and fry it. The bean blossom also can be eaten. Most edible flowers taste the same as the leaves on the same plant, except for chamomile and lavendar whose flowers have a more subtle taste than the leaves.
The flower known as Johnny Jump Ups has a minty flavor. You can be totally creative with edible flowers - put them in salads, desserts, freeze them and drop them into drinks.
The main thing with edible flowers is to have fun!
Fortunate