Using edible flowers in your wedding menu is such an excellent idea. Not only are most edible flowers tasty, but they’re an eco-friendly meal addition and really are lovely in food dishes and make a typical menu pop with color and unique style. Of course you can make candied edible flowers and use them atop wedding cakes or wedding cupcakes (even give them as favors) but fresh edible flowers are a hit too.
Here are some tips along with some amazing dish ideas.
Tips for using edible flowers in your green wedding menu:
- Safety first – not all flowers are safe to eat and many are seriously toxic. Never eat a flower unless you are 100% sure that it’s safe to eat. I suggest working with an expert caterer (who has worked with flowers in the past) or picking up a good book on the matter, such as, The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants
or The Edible Flower Garden
. One more note, flowers in magazine menu spreads look lovely, but many food magazines use flowers merely as decoration. Don’t put flowers on your menu just because you see them in a magazine.
- Not all parts of all edible flowers are safe to eat. For example, you can eat lavender and rose petals, but not the rest of the plant. Again, refer to an expert.
- Don’t just aim for color – you may want to match your wedding colors, but not all edible flowers deliver the same flavor. Some edible flowers are more bitter or spicy or just not as sweet and yummy as others. Taste and looks, not just looks is a big consideration.
- Always use organic flowers if you’re going to eat them.
- Remove stamens and styles from edible flowers before eating. The pollen may cause an allergic reaction in some and can detract from the flower’s flavor. Plus it looks unattractive to have pollen dust floating around the table.
- Flowers have a sort shelf-life. If you’re using edible flowers in your green wedding menu, make sure to purchase them right before the wedding (if you’re planning on a DIY menu). You can store edible flowers on moist paper, inside a sealed container in the fridge. If your flowers look iffy and limp, revive them by placing them, well, floating them in very cold water for a few minutes. This should be done soon before you’ll use them.
Beautiful edible flower ideas:
- My new favorite edible flower idea of all time is lovely Floral Pasta. The folks at Kitchen Caravan were oh so clever to come up with this. I’d never thought about something like this. I think it’s a smashing idea for a pasta dish at a green wedding, especially if you stick to nice white or wine sauces so the beautiful color shines through.
- To see amazing ideas for Lavender Blueberry Soup, Edible Flower Cream Cheese Spread, Chicken with Lavender and Honey, Rose Petal Ice Cream, Strawberry-Rose Bellini, Kedrin’s Golden Corn Muffins with Calendula Petals and more see this great pdf of edible flower recipes.
- A very modern and pretty salad of goat cheese, asparagus and beet with lovely purple puffs of chives.
- A Garden of Cocktails: I adore these pretty drinks and your guest will too.
- All sorts of ideas for various blooming salads. Petal choices, shopping ideas and even tips on growing your own edible flower garden from Sunset.
- A great starter – Organic Edible Flower Canapés – basic but really pretty idea.
Will you be using edible flowers in your green wedding menu?
[edible flower header image via Flickr user Joye~]
