The petals of pansies are edible. You can refine salads with fresh flowers. The candied flowers make your holiday cake an eye-catcher. The colorful flowers have a lot to offer not only as decoration, but also in terms of taste.
Are pansies edible?
Answer: Yes, pansy flowers are edible and are suitable as a salad ingredient, decoration for soups and dishes, as candied flowers on cakes and desserts, in flower teas and for making jams, jellies and liqueurs. However, make sure to only use untreated flowers.
The flowers of all types of violets have a pleasant sweetness, with the fragrant violet (Latin Viola odorata) having the finest aroma. This evergreen perennial often grows in gardens without being perceived as a real garden plant with its inconspicuous violet-blue flowers. It reproduces by self-seeding and above-ground runners. The common pansies and horned violets can be used as decoration and as an ingredient in the kitchen.
Use only untreated flowers
You can safely use the flowers of home-grown pansies when preparing food. When it comes to wild pansies, you should make sure that you do not pick them near busy roads, as there is a risk of fine dust and pollutants. If you buy ready-made plants, you should definitely be careful when consuming fresh flowers, as fertilizers or chemical pesticides are usually used to grow them.
Uses in the kitchen
You should always pick the flowers intended for consumption very fresh, as they quickly look wilted and quickly lose their aroma. The delicate flowers should not be washed beforehand so as not to become unsightly and to retain the sweet pollen. The following possible uses are available for the delicious flowers:
- fresh on a salad or on desserts,
- as an edible decoration for soups and dishes,
- candied on cakes and desserts,
- dried or fresh as an ingredient in flower teas,
- for making jams and jellies,
- frozen in ice cubes for making cocktails,
- as a coloring ingredient in the production of liqueurs.
To make candiers, dip the flowers in an egg white and water mixture and then dust them with powdered sugar. The flowers pre-treated in this way are left to dry in the oven overnight or at around 50°C for approx. 2 hours.
Tips & Tricks
Many wild forms of the viola were once considered medicinal plants. Even today, they are attributed homeopathic healing effects in alternative medicine. Roots and seeds can have a laxative effect (also in cats) or cause nausea, but no part of the pansy plant is poisonous.
