Sometimes it seems like "put a flower on it" is the mantra of the healthyish food world. And, yeah, edible flowers make every dish look delicious. But they're more than just eye candy: Blooms can add surprising texture and flavor if used right. Read: They'll totally up your culinary cred. Try to steer clear of pesticides and mass-cultivated blooms. There's probably a florist at your local farmers’ market who you've been passing as you bee-line for the fresh sourdough. Common florals like nasturtium and rose, or herb blossoms like cilantro, radish, and basil flowers are good-looking and good-tasting ones to start with. But don't take our word for it. We got seven chefs to school us on how best to meet our flower RDA.
Use Blossoms in Place of Mature Herbs
Using the flowering bit of your herbs is both delicious and sustainable. Chive, chervil, dill, sage, cilantro, and basil flowers all shoot up at the end of the season once the herbs are past their peaks. “I use them in dishes, not only as a beautiful sort of confetti garnish, but to offer the different personalities of an ingredient—like fava blooms on a fava bean salad—to really showcase the entirety of that ingredient's lifespan and flavors,” says Chef Kelly Fields of Willa Jean in New Orleans. Fields opts to use all sorts of flowering herbs in salads and for finishing dishes, particularly those with more delicate flavors that a mature herb might overpower. (Pipe down, mint.) “They’re a great flavor boost and really contribute an unexpected textural contrast to the dish,” Fields says.
Garnish Just about Anything
While flavor matters for your petals, let's be honest: Looks are still important. At AL’s Place in San Francisco, Chef Aaron London opts for flowers that are mild-tasting, colorful, and outrageously beautiful. Bachelor’s buttons, calendula, violets, carnations, daisies, and lilacs fit the bill. He also recommends picking a flavor profile: "spicy like nasturtium, cooling like borage, and vegetal like pea and fava,” he says. Even when cooking at home, London garnishes his salads with blooms. “[The dish] should be on the lighter side though,” he says. “Something really saucy, juicy, or with warm components isn’t as well suited for a floral garnish.” As for desserts that garnish well, opt for anything fruit-driven, and served cold. “A tart would make more sense than a pie, for example,” London says.
Make a Spice Rub
Everyone knows about rosewater, but Chef Stefan Bowers at Battalion Restaurant in San Antonio is all about the petal on its own. He dries his backyard blooms and grinds them in a mortar and pestle with cilantro, lime, and orange to use as a seafood rub. “[Rose] has a great perfume note that pairs well with oceanic flavors,” Bowers says. “Roses grow wild on the beach, and I always say if it grows together, it goes together.” You can also sprinkle the rub over an orange and pomegranate salad, or add sugar to ground rose petals and dust your baklava for a Mediterranean vibe. When making floral rubs, Bowers likes to pair roses, hibiscus, or anise flowers with light, citrus flavors. “Just steer clear of other loud spices like cumin,” he says. Add just a touch of sugar to bring out the sweetness, and rub down your meat before grilling.
Ditch the Pepper Grinder
Many varieties of sweet-looking florals actually pack a powerful punch. At San Francisco’s Lord Stanley, chef Carrie Blease makes a peppery oil from the nasturtiums grown on the restaurant roof. An 80:20 ratio of leaves to flowers is lightly blanched in boiling water, shocked in ice, and blended with a neutral oil, like rice bran, before being strained. “We mostly use the oil on our wagyu dish to cut the richness of the meat,” Blease says. “But it also looks beautiful floating on a hen consommé with sweet grilled figs.” (Blease recently collaborated with Woods Beer Co. on a nasturtium saison, too.) She likes to use fresh, foraged wasabi-like mustard flowers and arugula flowers to add color and balance her dishes. “We’re currently using them on an Earl Grey braised pork rib with molasses, which is perfect to cut the sweetness,” she says. When experimenting with peppery petals at home, Blease recommends looking to your spice cupboard for guidance. “Think about what you would normally use household condiments such as mustard and wasabi for, and try the flower instead,” she says.
Sip Your Blooms
If you’ve been to the sister restaurant of James-Beard Award-winning Maison Premiere, Sauvage, in Greenpoint, chances are you’ve sipped one of their botanical cocktails. (Maybe while spying the cute staff garb.) At the helm of both restaurants’ bar program is Will Elliott, whose cocktails are made exclusively with various artisanal aperitifs. One of these signatures is the Bitter Storm Over Ulm—a blend of Aveze Gentian (a liqueur made with wild yellow gentian foraged in France), lemon, macvin, and pear. It’s then garnished, obviously, with grassy, mild, blue cornflowers. “Aveze Gentian liqueur is very bright on the front of the palate, almost citrusy and very vegetal,” Elliot says. “On the nose, it smells like really good soil: sweet, wet dirt.” For the home mixologist, Elliot recommends bitter and spicy flavors rather than aromatic—like nasturtium or geranium—paired with neutral spirits like gin, vodka, or pisco.
Lean into the Sweet
Otway chefs Claire Welle and Samantha Safer know desert generally doesn’t need a lot of help going from menu to mouth. But add an edible flower, and it’s game-over. During the spring you might find cherry blossoms or honeysuckle dotting their menu. Right now, it’s homemade nougat speckled with bright purple violets. “They grow in the front yards and empty lots of our neighborhood in Brooklyn,” Safer says. “Violets are subtle enough to fit with our cuisine, and especially versatile and approachable.” When crafting deserts for the restaurant, Safer turns to milder varieties, like fennel pollen or chamomile flowers. For the home cook, Safer advises against extracts. “You know why rose water can be such a turn off? Because everyone uses the same exact brand, in the little blue bottle, and it's so aggressive it can easily ruin a meal,” she says. Instead, she recommends foraging or searching for flowers at your local farmers’ market.
Don't Do a Thing
Eating your flowering vegetables straight up, in salads, is chef Nick Curtola’s favorite play. At The Four Horseman in Brooklyn, he serves pea flowers in the snap pea salad with cashews, Calabrian chilies, and ricotta salata. “They have an awesome pea flavor and look beautiful,” he says. And while most restaurants are stuffing, battering, and frying their squash blossoms, Curtola’s going raw. “People love to cook them, but I think their flavor gets a little lost,” he says. “They're really beautiful when raw or cooked delicately, like in a bamboo steamer.” For other flowers you can basically leave to their own devices, look to milder, grassy vegetable blossoms from collards, kale, and snapdragons.