If you want to pretty up a plate of salad greens in a hurry, toss in a few edible flowers. One of the most common edible flowers is the nasturtium. Nasturtiums are both beautiful and delicious.
At first bite, nasturtiums have a slightly sweet flavor, but as you chew, they become spicy and taste almost like a radish. You can eat the entire plant, but the leaves and flowers are milder in flavor than the stems.
Nasturtiums are high in Vitamin C, and they also are believed to have medicinal properties equivalent to penicillin, helping the body to fight infections!
Nasturtiums thrive in most climates, and they are quite simple to grow. Adding a few of these pretty orange flowers to your garden will ensure that you have a beautiful edible garnish for your soups and salads all summer long!
Now, it’s time for your Trick:
If you want to grow nasturtiums this season, start them indoors now to give them a good start. Nasturtiums thrive in poor soil and they do not need fertilizer. In fact, fertile soil produces fewer blooms!
Your Tip:
You can make your own spicy vinegar with nasturtium flowers. All you need is a mason jar, a couple of cups of nasturtium flowers, some GMO-free white vinegar, a pinch of salt, and a tiny bit of cayenne pepper. Put your flowers in the jar and cover them with vinegar and spices. Let it steep for a week to ten days, and then strain and rebottle. This makes a great peppery dressing for your springtime salads.
And your Recipe:
Shrimp and Nasturtium Flower Salad with Avocado Dressing
Ingredients
- 3 cups arugula
- 2 cups chopped kale ribs removed
- 6 - 8 nasturtium flowers
- 1 medium cucumber chopped
- 1 medium peach pitted and cubed
- 16 large shrimp peeled and deveined, cooked and chilled
- 1 medium red bell pepper de-seeded, de-ribbed and chopped
- 2 large avocados pitted, peeled and sliced
- 1/3 cup coconut cream
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup cider vinegar
- 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 1 medium lemon juiced
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon hot sauce
Instructions
- In a large serving bowl, toss together arugula and kale; place nasturtiums flowers, chopped cucumber, cubed peaches, shrimp, and bell pepper on top.
- Set the bowl aside. In a medium bowl, smash together remaining ingredients (avocados through hot sauce) until smooth; drizzle this mixture over the salad and serve.
Snipping beautiful, richly colored nasturtiums into our salads can help to spice things up a bit and it’s fun for the kids to eat flowers! Join us on a fabulous journey of health and renewal (plus you’ll drop some pounds!) with our Hot Melt 30 program – get all the details HERE!