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Edible flowers turn meals into colorful, nutritious, whimsical dishes.
Food presentation is an art, and cooking with edible flowers can make you an artist. When you learn how to cook with nutritive blooms, your ho-hum meals — splashed with color and strung with beauty —become the belle of the culinary ball. The best part? The first two of these flowers can easily be foraged from your own yard for free.
Why Forage?
Eating local food has grown in popularity because of health and environmental benefits. If you want to eat local, foraging from your own yard is as local as it gets.
Produce begins to lose its nutrients as soon as it’s picked, so eliminating the lag time between harvest and consumption is key to maximizing nourishment. When foraging from your own yard, farm to table becomes yard to table, and your body receives the greatest benefits.
Dandelions
The easiest and most abundant flower you can begin foraging is the often (but mistakenly) disparaged dandelion. Dandelions are full of nutrition and flavor and edible from top to bottom. Rich in antioxidants, including lutein which makes your skin glow, they also double as a beauty treatment.
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When to Harvest: Official foraging books suggest harvesting in May. However, here in Roanoke, if there’s no snow cover, I start in March. That’s when I’ve found the flavor to be best.
How to Use: The easiest way to utilize the dandelion is by making tea. If you’ve never foraged anything, this is the best jumping off point because you really can’t go wrong. It’s also an effortless way to introduce children to foraging and provide an immediate experience consuming the foraged item. My son loved gathering dandelions when he was 3 years old, and he still loves it as a 5-year-old.
To make tea, simply boil water and add dandelions. Allow the dandelions to steep for five minutes. You can use any quantity of dandelions and water, depending on your taste preference and availability. I use the ratio of about 5 flowers: 1 cup of water. You can add fancier things if you wish, including honey and ginger. The roots and leaves are also edible and able to be steeped in tea, but I do find the roots bitter unless I roast them first. If you harvest your dandelions early enough in spring, some of them will actually taste like honey.
The second simplest way to use dandelions is by picking the flower heads, rinsing them with water, coating them with the flour of your choice, frying them in the oil of your choice and then salting lightly. I use a spelt flour/cornmeal blend as a coating and sauté them in coconut oil or butter, but I encourage you to experiment.
The fresh greens also work well raw in salads and on sandwiches and cooked into omelets and casseroles.
Many people claim the greens are bitter, but I don’t find them to be so. This may be because of early harvest or the fact that I blend them with other flavors. I bake them into dandelion fritters or sauté them with onions, herbs and olive oil as a side dish.
The next time you see dandelion tea at the store, just think: You can forage and make that yourself.
Wild Violets
Caution: Consume wild violets in moderation, as they can cause digestive upset if consumed in large amounts. Eat only the leaves, stems and flowers. The roots and seeds are toxic and inedible. I have never actually experienced digestive upset from consuming these, but I don’t consume more than a few ounces at a time.
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When to Harvest: Like dandelions, I forage these in March, as soon as I see them. The flavor is sometimes peppery, but the young ones are actually sweet with a mild floral flavor. Wild violets are abundant and easy to find, and my guess is that you can forage some from your own yard too.
How to Use: I bake these into breads and muffins for a pop of purple that delights and is rich in vitamins A and C. I also use them to decorate desserts like chocolate pudding by stirring them in. The peppery flavor, if the flowers have it, is not pronounced enough to be bothersome.
They’re also a great addition to salads and bring you one step closer to eating the rainbow by throwing them in raw, as you would any vegetable.
Want to learn more about how edible flowers can turn your meals into a colorful, nutritious work of art? Check out the latest issue, now on newsstands, or see it for free in our digital guide linked below!
The story above is a preview from our November/December 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!