The Delectable Daylily - Stuffed Daylily Blossoms Recipe
Written and Photographed by Juliet Blankespoor
The inside of a beautiful daylily blossom.
Daylily flowers only open for one day
The daylily is not only a versatile wild edible, but a beautiful and easy-to-grow perennial garden flower. It is native to Asia and has escaped cultivation over most of eastern North America. Daylily is a familiar sight alongside streams, roadsides, and fences. Chances are you are already living close to a patch of this showy member of the Xanthorrhoeaceae family.
Hemerocallis fulva, the scientific name of the daylily, translates from Greek to Kallos – beautiful and Hemera – Day. The common name is derived from the fact that daylily flowers only open for one day. During its flowering season, one can observe: the plump buds of tomorrow’s flowers, the yellow-orange open flowers of the day, and the wilted flowers from yesterday. Cultivated in Asia for millennia, the dried flower buds are sold as “golden needles” and are an important ingredient in many traditional soups.
Having grown up in the suburbs where daylily is a common garden perennial, I was naturally drawn to its yummy flowers when I first began experimenting with wild foods.The flowers petals may be pulled apart and added to salads or as a gorgeous garnish to any dish. They can also be added to a stir –fry prior to serving, which will help to retain their color and soften their texture. The plump, almost-open, flower buds may be dried thoroughly and sealed in an air tight container for re-hydrating in soups or casseroles during the winter months. The dried flowers add a sunny dash of beta-carotene and Vitamin C to any dish. My favorite way of serving the fresh flowers is to stuff them – in the mouth. Please see the photo below of stuffed daylily flowers and the accompanying recipe below.
Fresh daylily buds on a platter.
Daylily can sometimes cause an allergic reaction
In extolling their virtues, I feel I should offer this caution. Some people are allergic to daylily and react to them with vomiting and diarrhea, especially when eaten raw. It is a small percentage of people who experience these unpleasant reactions – perhaps one out of fifty. It is prudent to start with a small amount of cooked flowers or shoots and slowly eat larger portions if no gastric upset is observed. Following this protocol, any serious allergic reactions should be avoided.
Daylily shoots soaking up sunshine.
Daylily, calendula, and heart’s ease salad.
Daylily tubers – note how the tubers resemble miniature potatoes, and there is no bulb or lateral rhizome present.
Stuffed Daylily blossoms.
Stuffed Daylily Blossoms Recipe
Equipment
- Sauté pan
Ingredients
- 10 daylily blossoms
- 2 cloves garlic
- ½ onion
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 basket of wild greens
- 1 block of tofu or goat cheese
- Edible flowers
Directions
- Pick fresh open daylily flowers and remove the inner reproductive parts.
- Sauté two cloves of garlic and one-half of an onion in olive oil and add wild greens in season. Lambs quarters (Chenopodium album), Nettles (Urtica dioica) and Lady’s Thumb (Polygonum persicaria or Persicaria spp.) are all yummy choices.
- Crumble in one block of tofu or goat cheese and take off heat when the greens are tender and still green. Make sure to cook the greens thoroughly if you have added nettles to remove the potential of their sting.
- Stuff the flowers and garnish with a spiderwort blossom (Tradescantia spp.) or any other edible flower growing near you.
- Serve warm or chilled and share the free-for-the-picking bounty of this glorious Earth!
Meet The Green Mastermind Behind Blog Castanea
JULIET BLANKESPOOR is the founder, primary instructor, and Creative Director of the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine, an online school serving thousands of students from around the globe. She's a professional plant-human matchmaker and bonafide plant geek, with a degree in botany and over 30 years of experience teaching and writing about herbalism, medicine making, and organic herb cultivation. Juliet’s lifelong captivation with medicinal weeds and herb gardening has birthed many botanical enterprises over the decades, including an herbal nursery and a farm-to-apothecary herbal products business.
These days, she channels her botanical obsession through her writing and photography in her online programs, on her personal blog Castanea, and in her new book, The Healing Garden: Cultivating and Handcrafting Herbal Remedies. Juliet and her family reside in a home overrun with houseplants and books in Asheville, North Carolina.
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Mich says:
I also found the raw buds delicious in my salad but almost immediately had a digestive reaction. Vomiting and such. Will perhaps try them cooked next time around
Sara Kinney says:
And just try a tiny bit of them cooked, since you know that you have a reaction to it.
Fredrika says:
Hi, I enjoyed your article. Just wanted to clarify… The flower are suitable for raw eating? The stuffed flowers have not been parboiled first?…Beautiful dish! Thanks!
Juliet Blankespoor says:
Yes, you can eat the raw flowers, just try a little the first time!
Connie says:
Hello! I’m wondering if the huge patch in one of my gardens of what we in this area call “road lilies” are the same thing. The tubers look the same, the shoots are the same, the flowers are the same, but ours grow a stem to roughly 5′ tall. These ‘road lilies’ grow wild in this region and abundantly. It would be awesome to have this well established edible plant! I have enjoyed reading your articles and learning so much from them!!! Thank you!!!
Juliet Blankespoor says:
Thanks for the kind words! Daylilies do grow in the ditches alongside roads, but without seeing the plant you have, we can’t say if you indeed have daylily (Hemerocallis fulva). It’s important to rely on identifying characteristics and not common names!
Amy says:
I ate one flower the other day to test it. I thought it tasted nice and I had no problems with it the tiny test flower I consumed. So for dinner tonight I ate some buds cooked with butter and salt & pepper and I’m not feeling so great. I just took some digestive medicine a few minutes ago and I’ll try some benedryl in a bit too if my digestive issues don’t clear up. I’m breathing fine, no hives, etc
Is it possible the buds were maybe just too green? Or do you think I just shouldn’t eat them anymore altogether? Anyone come across this?
Juliet Blankespoor says:
Hi Amy,
For some reason I haven’t been seeing comments on the blog so I only now came across this! How are you feeling now? People who react to daylily tend to have nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. Not systemic inflammatory responses or hives. The buds should be fine, no matter how small, if you don’t have a daylily sensitivity.
Best of luck and hope you are feeling better!
Juliet
Amy says:
I did not have hives or anything. But I had all three of the digestive symptoms you mentioned. I’m fine now. It just had to run its course. But thanks. It’s a shame, I liked the taste but I obviously am unable to eat them. 🙁
Kathereine says:
I have all kinds of daylilly’s in my yard. I will have to try some.
Cindi Quay says:
Lovely!!!! Gratitude!
Breezy says:
we had daylilies yesterday for the first time and so enjoyed them. Amazing !
Oakmoss Education says:
Thank you for a wonderfully informative post. As a daylily “imbiber” for many years, I am really inspired by your culinary suggestions. My only issue is the continual competition with the White-tailed Deer who also know of the daylily’s deliciousness! As for proper ID, I’ve put together some guidelines for wild foraging that your readership may find useful (see below). Best wishes!
http://oakmossed.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/the-six-knows-wild-plants/
Sissy says:
Is this the same Lilly’s as some call tiger Lilly’s?
Juliet Blankespoor says:
Sissy,
Some people call Daylily “Tigerlily” but there are also many species in the Lilium genus, which are called tiger lilies. The Lilium species typically have whorled leaves and the petals curl back more than daylily. Do a simple google search for tigerlily images and you will see the difference.
Iris Weaver says:
Let me know how it works!
Sherri says:
That’s such a cool suggestion about freezing them, Iris. I’ll give that a try.
Iris Weaver says:
Please do!
An electric stove at 175 degrees works also, but it does take electricity. How about putting the flowers single layer on a cookie sheet in the freezer and then throw the frozen blooms into a bag in the freezer till soup time?
Sherri says:
Iris, I have little success drying anything, because of the humidity here, and I don’t have a dehydrator or a gas stove. Can I come to your house for winter stew? 🙂
Iris Weaver says:
Sherri, do you save and dry some of those flowers you are dead-heading. it’s so easy to toss the dried flowers in a paper bag or a glass jar and then use them in winter stews.
Rebecca says:
So you save the flowers you dead-headed and put them in stews? I am new to this foraging process and am very interested.
Juliet Blankespoor says:
Yes, at the end of the day when the flowers are still looking nice, you can pick them and dry or use fresh.
Sherri says:
I love Iris’s words, “… I spend a bit of meditative time at the sink scrubbing briefly with a vegetable brush.” Daylilies do require a bit of meditative time, whether I’m preparing them for food or maintaining them as ornamentals in the garden. When I get into the rhythm of deadheading 200 or more spent blooms at once, there’s plenty of time for reflection. And also time for munching on full buds yet to bloom, a delightful snappy crunch experience.
Do you know of any daylily varieties that are as peppery as chive or nasturtium flowers? I’d like to think that breeders would be working on this. 🙂
Iris Weaver says:
Actually, one of the great things about daylily tubers is that you can eat them anytime you can dig them (so, not during the January freeze, say). Just be sure to only use the tubers and not the attached roots.
Iris Weaver says:
Oh my goodness, Juliet, I think getting the tubers is really easy when you have a clump of daylilies. It’s also a good way to get them thinned out a bit. They are a bit labor-intensive, I guess. I may soak them a bit just to loosen the dirt, and then I spend a bit of meditative time at the sink scrubbing briefly with a vegetable brush. I just slice quickly and throw them in with other veggies in a stir fry, for mashed root veg, or soups and stews. I don’t use them by themselves–not a lot of flavor, and a lot of work for a large number. But to have some to add in here and there, adds joy in the gathering and doing and more variety in whatever they’re in.
Juliet Blankespoor says:
Thanks Iris, I wil try to be more tuber-adventerous this fall and winter, such an abundant food.
Iris Weaver says:
OOOh, lovely pictures, delightful daylilies! I never thought of stuffing them with sauted greens, and maybe a couple other flowers. I will have to do that this summer.
Have you ever used the tubers? They are in some ways my favorite part of the daylily to eat, because they are available most of the year. I slice and include in soups and stirfries.
Juliet Blankespoor says:
Iris, I have tried the tubers several times and always thought they were small for the effort and not especially tasty. How do you prepare them? I will have the revisit the tubers, I think the greens and petals have spoiled me 🙂