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You are here: Home / Fruits & Vegetables / Growing Vegetables / Can you eat broccoli when it starts to flower?

Can you eat broccoli when it starts to flower?

3 Comments

flowering broccoli

If you missed out on harvesting your broccoli at the tight bud stage, all is not lost. Even with the bright yellow flowers open, you can still harvest your broccoli. Broccoli plants are made to flower and produce seeds. The perfect time to harvest broccoli heads is when the heads are still bright green and still composed of tightly formed buds. If a few of the buds have bloomed and turned yellow, it is not too late but you need to harvest the crown quickly before the rest of the buds open up.

However, if you were unable to harvest your broccoli crowns before they bolted, you can still put your plants to use. The tender stems, leaves, buds, and flowers of the broccoli plant are all edible. Your bright yellow broccoli flowers are not only edible, but some people find them to be quite tasty as well, and they are sold at some high-scale markets as a delicacy. However, they are not for everyone’s palate, as some people find them to be bitter and grainy, while others describe their flavor as nutty and enjoy the unique texture that broccoli flowers provide.

The main downside to letting your broccoli bolt, unfortunately, is that the plant practically loses all of its nutritional value once it has flowered. So, you can eat it, but it’s not going to bring you the same healthy serving of nutrition that traditional broccoli would have. As far as preparation goers, the choice is yours whether to eat your broccoli blooms cooked, or fresh out of the soil, but if you choose to cook them, avoid steaming, as that technique will quickly wilt your broccoli flowers, which ruins their unique texture. 

broccoli plant and broccoli flower with text overlay vegetable gardening can you eat broccoli when it starts to flower

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Filed Under: Growing Vegetables

Comments

  1. Keith says

    June 15, 2022 at 11:38 pm

    If the same nutrition is in the stalks , flowered broccoli should stil have value.

    Reply
    • Melissa says

      July 19, 2022 at 4:06 pm

      I was thinking the same, at the very least the nutritionally value of the stems should remain the same…but that’s only me being logical.

      Reply
  2. mcheng_510 says

    November 8, 2022 at 12:10 pm

    You can harvest the whatever is leftover for a tasty stir-fry. Start with a clove of garlic in a pan with olive oil; bring pan to heat then add the cut leafs and stems; season with salt/pepper or soy sauce. Taste almost like Chinese broccoli.

    Reply

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