We’re often told that once a brassica bolts, that signals the end of its life. Time to pull it up and toss it in the compost bin (or, if you’re like me and subscribe to the lazy gardening philosophy, you just cut it down and use the old foliage as mulch).
But to me, those first few kale buds (also known as kale flowers, kale florets, or kale raab) are the start of a new life—in the form of edible flowers that are surprisingly tender and sweet, especially if you’ve had a very cold winter, which brings out their sweetness more.
Did you know you can eat them? Dare I say, they’re sometimes even better than the rest of the plant! (And, you might have eaten other types of brassica flowers before and not realized it.)
Can You Eat Kale Flowers? The Delicious and Nutritious Guide to Enjoying Every Part of the Kale Plant
Kale has become one of the most popular leafy greens in recent years, prized for its health benefits and versatility in the kitchen. But did you know that you can eat more than just the leaves of the kale plant? The flowers are edible too!
When kale bolts and sends up flowering stalks as temperatures warm in spring, don’t discard those blooms. You can harvest and eat kale flowers for a tasty, nutritious treat. Here’s a complete guide to identifying, harvesting, and cooking with these underutilized parts of the kale plant.
What Are Kale Flowers?
Kale flowers begin as tight cylindrical clusters of unopened flower buds emerging from a central stalk. This stage is known as “kale raab” or “kale florets.” The buds contain hundreds of tiny yellow flowers that will eventually bloom into small four-petaled blooms. But inside those closed buds is a tender mild tasting interior.
As the buds swell, they transition from bright green to a paler yellow-green color. If left to bloom on the plant, the buds unfurl into delicate yellow flowers each about an inch across. While edible, open blooms can become more fibrous and bitter in flavor. For best texture and taste harvest kale florets when the buds are plump but still tightly closed.
The Nutritional Value of Kale Flowers
Like the leaves, kale flowers are packed with vitamins, minerals, and potent antioxidants. Raab is an excellent source of immune-boosting vitamin C and vitamin K. It also provides vitamin A, B vitamins, iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, and manganese.
Kale flowers contain at least 45 different flavonoid antioxidants including kaempferol and quercetin. These compounds provide anti-inflammatory benefits and protect cells from damage. Overall, the flower buds likely offer many of the same nutritional benefits as kale leaves.
When Do Kale Flowers Appear?
As a hardy biennial, kale grows vigorously through fall and winter before sending up flower stalks to set seed in spring, completing its two-year life cycle. Flower buds typically emerge on kale started the previous summer or fall. Plants that overwintered through cold temps will bolt as temperatures warm in late spring. Summer-planted kale may also bolt quickly in hot weather.
Monitor your overwintered and spring-planted kale closely for the first signs of buds forming. Flowering generally occurs anytime between April and June depending on your climate. A light frost can help intensify the sweet flavor of the blooms. Once buds appear, they can be harvested within just a couple weeks.
How to Harvest Kale Flowers
Harvesting kale blooms is as simple as pinching or snipping off the entire flower stem right below the cluster of buds. The tapered ends allow for a clean break. Harvest in the morning when buds are crispest.
Give the buds a quick rinse before use. There’s no need to remove the individual blooms from the stem, as the mild-flavored stems are completely edible. In fact, the tiny leaves at the base of each floret are also tender and delicious.
How to Eat Kale Flowers
While unfamiliar to many home cooks, kale florets offer a sweet, nutty flavor and tender-crisp texture perfect for both raw and cooked applications. Try:
- Sautéing in olive oil with garlic, salt, and pepper
- Adding to stir-fries, pasta, pizza, frittatas
- Mixing into grain bowls and green salads
- Using as a garnish for soups
- Roasting along with veggies
- Topping sandwiches instead of alfalfa sprouts
Kale buds pair well with lemon, garlic, nuts, onions, and bold seasonings. Simply sautéing in olive oil allows their flavor to shine. The possibilities are endless for using these vitamin-packed blooms in place of kale leaves.
Storing Fresh Kale Flowers
For best flavor and nutrition, eat kale buds soon after harvesting. If storing for a couple days, keep chilled in an airtight container lined with a dry paper towel. The closed flower heads are highly perishable.
For longer storage, blanch for 1-2 minutes then freeze in airtight bags. Kale florets also dehydrate well if dried at 95°F until crisp. Rehydrate in soups later. Properly stored, they will keep for several months.
Growing Kale for Flowers
While most grocery store kale is harvested young for leaves, home gardeners can watch kale reach maturity and flower. For prolific blooms:
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Grow cold hardy, vigorous varieties like Winterbor, Red Russian, or Dinosaur kale.
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Plant seeds mid-summer to early fall for healthy plants that overwinter.
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Apply winter mulch to insulate roots from frost.
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Ensure consistent moisture so plants don’t bolt from drought stress.
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Avoid excess nitrogen fertilizer that promotes leafy growth over flowers.
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Site in full sun for best texture and sweetness.
With ideal growing conditions, kale will reward you with a bountiful early spring flower harvest before going to seed.
Eating All Parts of Kale
Far from signaling the end, kale flowers provide one final opportunity to savor this nutritious plant. Much like broccoli raab, the blooms offer a culinary treat that few people realize they can eat.
Along with the leaves, stems, roots, and flowers, even the seeds can be harvested once dry on spent kale plants. Sprinkle the seeds onto salads or soups or sprout them for extra nutrition.
By using every edible part over the full growing season, you’ll get the most out of each kale plant you grow. From leaves to flowers and seeds, discover new ways to enjoy this versatile superfood from your garden.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are answers to some common questions about eating kale flowers:
Are kale flowers safe to eat raw?
Yes, kale blooms can be eaten raw straight from the garden or tossed into salads and slaws. They have a very mild, sweet flavor when harvested young.
Do kale flowers taste like the leaves?
Not exactly. Kale buds offer a more subtle, nutty taste, akin to broccoli crossed with bok choy. The texture of the tight buds is very tender and crunchy.
Can you eat open kale flowers?
While technically edible, mature open kale flowers tend to become more bitter and fibrous in texture. For best results, harvest the tightly closed buds.
What part of the flower is edible?
The entire kale flower bud is edible including small tender leaves at the base of the florets. Yellow petals can be slightly fibrous once open. Only consume leaves when young and tender.
Is it better to cook or eat raw?
Cooking via sautéing, steaming, or stir-frying brings out more flavor. But raw kale buds also make a nice addition to salads, as a garnish, or on sandwiches.
Are they the same as broccolini?
No. Broccolini is a trademarked name for a patented hybrid of broccoli and Chinese kale. Kale flowers are simply the blooms of regular kale plants.
The Next Time Your Kale Flowers…
The next time your kale starts sending up flower stalks, don’t pull it up! Harvest those blooms and enjoy kale in a whole new way. Both nutritious and delicious, the buds can be substituted into any recipe that calls for kale leaves.
With their mild sweet flavor, kale flowers may even convert some veggie-averse family members. Kids often enjoy their petite size and gentle taste.
Finally, by using every edible part of kale from roots to flowers, you’ll get the most out of each plant while wasting nothing. Turn those buds into a bonus harvest this spring and discover just how tasty kale flowers can be!
When does kale start to flower?
Being a cold-hardy biennial, kale is best grown in the fall and survives winters down to USDA hardiness zone 7. (In my experience, it can keep going in zone 6 if given frost protection and plenty of winter mulch.) It spends its first season developing a strong root system and healthy head of leaves.
From late spring to early summer as the weather warms up, flower buds appear after an overwintered kale plant has completed its life cycle. A kale plant started in spring will also bolt (flower) once high summer temperatures arrive.
Before it sets seed, it sends up a flower stalk and the buds can (and should) be harvested for one final hurrah before the plant expires. You can even pinch the buds back to encourage more flower heads to form in the last couple weeks.
(I should add that you’ll usually only see flower buds on biennial kale, which most people grow as annuals. A few varieties of perennial kale do exist, and it’s a mixed bag as to which varieties will flower. Taunton Deane grows year-round and does not flower, for instance, while Daubenton perennial kale can.)
Once kale starts to flower, however, the quality of the leaves deteriorates. They become bitter and somewhat fibrous—though neither of this affects the flower buds, which stay sweet and tender.
Learn how to use every edible part of the vegetables you grow or buy (including kale buds!).
My book features recipes and techniques for wasting less food and getting more nutrition out of your plants—all while enjoying easy-to-prepare flavorful meals.
Can you really eat kale flowers?
Absolutely, and you’d be missing out on a culinary delicacy if you didn’t!
If the concept of eating kale flowers seems strange to you, you’ve probably cooked with other forms of brassica buds and not even realized it.
Take broccoli raab, for example.
Raab (derived from rapa, Italian for turnip) is just a fancy word for the flowering tops of plants from the brassica family, such as kale, broccoli, mustard greens, and Chinese cabbage.
Broccoli raab (sometimes called rapini) is sold in supermarkets as bundles of stems with tight clusters of flower buds, some with tiny yellow blossoms. Gailan (also called Chinese broccoli, and available in Asian markets and specialty markets) is a culinary staple enjoyed for these little flower buds as well.
And did you know that a head of broccoli and head of cauliflower is actually just the flower bud of those plants?
Broccoli and cauliflower were selectively bred to produce huge amounts of flowers compared to other Brassica oleracea cultivars. The “heads,” or florets, are simply oversized versions of what should really be called broccoli buds and cauliflower buds—so this “unusual” part is more common than you think.
In fact, the brassica family is an incredibly diverse group of plants that were all bred from the same ancestor (wild mustard) to produce desirable characteristics in the crop. Kale was selected for its tender leaves; broccoli was bred to produce big, delicious florets and stems; kohlrabi was bred to make a swollen, crisp and juicy stem, and you may have noticed that it tastes a lot like a broccoli stem because, well… botanically it is!
There’s even a variety called asparagus kale that’s grown for its tasty, tender flower shoots, which can be snapped off in spring, blanched, and eaten like asparagus.
The point is, brassica plants make all kinds of edible parts beyond what you typically see in the store.
So then, you might be wondering, why doesn’t anyone ever sell kale florets?
It’s simply a matter of demand and the fact that eating kale florets has never been a part of American food culture. (Weird, but true.)
People buy kale for its leaves, since that’s the part they’re most familiar with, leaving farmers to move on to other crops long before kale has had a chance to flower. But if you grow your own kale at home, you get this bonus harvest at the end of the season that most people never experience!
Flowering Kale: Be Sure to Eat Your Overwintered Kale Plants (and Flowers)!
FAQ
Is it safe to eat kale flowers?
… important caveat is that if you buy a colourful kale in a pot or have a bunch of flowers containing tall-stemmed colourful cabbages it is best not to eat themJan 18, 2023
What to do with kale when it flowers?
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Statesman Journalhttps://www.statesmanjournal.comHow to harvest kale leaves and buds – Statesman JournalApr 3, 2018 — If you want new kale plants from the old, let your kale flower and set seed. Lovely yellow blossoms attract bees like crazy. At this stage, the flowe…
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Reddit · r/vegetablegardeninghttps://www.reddit.comMy kale is starting to flower?? It seems so early for that (9b) – can I still keep eating it or will it get really bitter?
What does flowering kale taste like?
Flowering kale is not only edible but yummy! It used to be available in grocery stores around here, and I would eat it in salads. It tastes like a combination of cabbage and kale. The white variety tastes like green cabbage and the purple variety tastes like red cabbage.
What are the benefits of flowering kale?
Flowering Kale offers many benefits, including low maintenance, attractive foliage, culinary use, and lasting color in the landscape. This unique ornamental provides visual interest with crinkled foliage, a colorful rosette center, and an upright habit of 8-12″ tall and 15-18″ wide.
Can you eat kale flowers?
You can eat kale flowers that are raw or cooked. You could also add the flowers to some hot tea!. Last but not least, you can always pick the flowers and put them in a vase. You know I love having fresh flowers on our farmhouse table whenever I can.
Is kale a healthy food?
Kale is a popular vegetable and a member of the cabbage family. It is a cruciferous vegetable which can provide nutrition and health benefits. This vegetable is high in vitamin A, K, C, folate, minerals (calcium, potassium, and magnesium), and dietary fiber. Studies have reported that kale can help with weight reduction.
Are kale flowers healthy?
These little blossoms contain vitamins, antioxidants, and other nutrients like calcium that can contribute to a healthy diet. Among all the Brassicas, kale flowers are particularly tender and can add a slightly sweet flavor to various dishes.
Can you eat Kale florets raw?
Preview the book. Harvesting and preparing kale florets is as easy as pinching off the stem (just below the bottom bud or flower) and giving the flowers a quick, light rinse in water. The stems are often soft enough to eat (even raw), so there’s no need to remove the flowers from the stem.
Why do people eat Kale florets?
It’s simply a matter of demand and the fact that eating kale florets has never been a part of American food culture. (Weird, but true.) People buy kale for its leaves, since that’s the part they’re most familiar with, leaving farmers to move on to other crops long before kale has had a chance to flower.
Are kale florets edible?
There’s even a variety called asparagus kale that’s grown for its tasty, tender flower shoots, which can be snapped off in spring, blanched, and eaten like asparagus. The point is, brassica plants make all kinds of edible parts beyond what you typically see in the store. So then, you might be wondering, why doesn’t anyone ever sell kale florets?