If you’ve ever been around someone who loves bananas, then you know how much they love them—and that includes their flowers.
The banana plant has long been known as one of the most attractive and versatile plants in the world, but it also happens to be very popular among a particular group of people: those who enjoy eating its flowers.
Bananas have an edible fruit on top of them, which we commonly refer to as “a bunch of bananas.”
But what if you want to eat the flowers instead?
What Is The Recipe For A Banana Flower Dish?
In many parts of Asia, including India, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh (where this recipe comes from), there are several ways to prepare something called “banana flower curry.”
These dishes often include other ingredients like coconut milk or tamarind juice, but the basic idea behind each version is similar.
It may seem strange at first glance, but the beauty of these curries is that they don’t contain any meat or spices.
Instead, they use the natural flavors of banana blossoms to create an incredibly delicious meal.
Since every banana variety seems to produce different-shaped flowers, some recipes call for specific shapes of banana blossoms.
The following recipe uses large, round banana flowers.
To get started, wash your hands thoroughly before preparing the banana flower dish.
Then, cut off all of the petals individually by cutting through the stem where it meets the blossom.
You can also do this using scissors if you prefer.
Next, slice open the bottom end of the blossom so that it opens up into a bowl shape.
This will allow the air inside to escape, making sure that the entire blossom won’t explode when cooking.
Once the blossom is sliced open, add about 2 cups water to the base and cover with aluminum foil.
Let sit overnight.
When morning arrives, take out the blossom and rinse well under running water.
Now, remove the stamens and pistils from the blossom.
If you aren’t familiar with these terms, here’s a video explaining further:
Once everything is cleaned, place the banana blossom in a saucepan filled with enough water to cover the base.
Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally until the mixture begins to bubble slightly.
Reduce the heat to medium low, partially covering the pan with a lid.
Cook for 20 minutes while constantly stirring to ensure that nothing sticks to the pan.
After the time period elapses, drain the liquid completely and discard.
Using a blender, blend together 1 cup of heavy cream, 3 tablespoons sugar, and 1 tablespoon lemon zest.
Add this mixture back to the pot containing the remaining liquid along with the blended cream.
Continue to cook for another 10 minutes until thickened.
Finally, stir in 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and serve immediately.
Now that you’ve learned the basics of making a banana flower dish, try experimenting with different types of banana varieties.
For example, if you live near Hawaii, you might consider growing a type of tropical banana that produces yellowish orange flowers.
Or maybe you want to try one that grows naturally in Florida.
How Do You Make A Banana Flower Dish?
In order to find out what exactly makes up this dish, let’s first take a look at some of the elements involved.
- Bananas
- Flowers (usually green)
- Grasshoppers (also called crickets or kazis)
- A cup of water
Step 1: How to harvest the banana flowers
To start off your preparation process, you will need to harvest the flowers so you can add them into your dish later.
There are several ways to go about harvesting these flowers, depending on where you live.
You could simply pick them yourself, or you could ask a local farmer to help you collect the flowers for you.
You may not always be able to get fresh flowers, however, especially if they aren’t in season.
If you don’t have access to fresh ones, you might be able to buy dried flowers instead.
Step 2: What to cook the banana flower dish with
Once you have harvested your flowers, you will want to prepare something delicious to serve alongside them.
For this recipe, you will use grasshoppers (or cricket).
While many cultures enjoy eating the insects themselves, they are often used as a side dish when preparing other dishes.
They come in different sizes, shapes, and colors, making them easy to pair with whatever else you’re cooking.
In this case, you should choose grasshopper meat that is still soft enough to chew.
This means you won’t want to over-cook them, since they would become tough and fall apart.
It’s important to note that you must remove all parts of the insect before cooking it.
These include the legs, wings, antennae, eyes, and stomach.
You can either boil or fry your insects to achieve tenderness.
Step 3: Get started cooking the banana flower dish
Now that you’ve got your insects ready, it’s time to begin cooking!
First, combine your grasshoppers with a cup of water in a saucepan over medium heat until it boils.
Then cover the pot and reduce the temperature to low heat.
Allow the mixture to simmer gently while stirring occasionally.
After 30 minutes, turn off the stove and allow the liquid to cool down completely.
Once it reaches room temperature, strain the liquid through cheesecloth and discard any remaining solids.
Next, place your strained mixture back onto the stovetop and bring it to a boil once again.
When it does, stir constantly until it thickens slightly.
Finally, transfer your cooked mixture to a bowl and set aside to cool down completely.
What Are The Ingredients For A Banana Flower Dish?
Unlike other fruits, such as apples or grapes, the banana plant doesn’t produce any seeds when it grows.
That means there’s no need to worry about cross-contamination between different varieties of the same species.
With this in mind, many people prefer to use only the banana flowers themselves rather than trying to grow new plants.
As long as you don’t eat too many at once (or risk passing out), you should be fine.
As far as recipes go, your options are pretty limited.
However, some restaurants and grocery stores offer special dishes that feature banana flower buds, while others offer more elaborate versions where you get to choose your own favorite flavorings.
Here’s everything you need to know about making a banana flower dish yourself at home.
Where Can I Find A Recipe For A Banana Flower Dish?
While you might assume that this type of food would be difficult to come by, there are actually quite a few recipes out there for different types of dishes using banana flowers.
The problem is finding these recipes isn’t easy, though, because many don’t include specific instructions or cooking times, so you might end up wasting your time searching.
Fortunately, however, Banana Flower Recipes offers several options for both online viewing and downloading.
If you choose to download, keep in mind that the recipes are not free, but will cost $1 each.
However, it does provide detailed descriptions of each dish, including step-by-step instruction guides, ingredient lists, and recommended serving sizes.
You can either click here to view all the available banana flower recipes at once or use the search bar to look through the list individually.
You won’t need any special equipment to make any of these dishes—just follow the directions carefully.
For example, let’s take a closer look at some of the other recipes available on this site before moving onto how you can create one yourself.
Chutney
This chutney features a number of ingredients like garlic, ginger, onion, vinegar, salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin, coriander, chili powder, and mangoes. It looks pretty tasty, doesn’t it?
Mango Soup
Here, you’ll first prepare a simple tomato soup base.
Once that’s done, you’ll add the mangoes along with some coconut milk.
Then, stir well until everything comes together and serve.
Baked Bananas
In order to bake bananas, simply peel them and cut into pieces.
Next, mix butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla extract, and lemon juice together.
Finally, dip the bananas into the mixture and put them into oven (or microwave) to heat thoroughly.
Serve warm.
Sauce
To start off, boil water over high heat and drop in the sliced onions.
After about 10 minutes, drain the liquid and set aside.
In another pan, melt the oil over medium heat and saute the crushed cloves of garlic until light golden brown.
Add the tomatoes, stock cube, chilli powder, ground almonds, red bell peppers, black olives, basil leaves, and raisins to the pan and simmer for 15 minutes.
How Do I Cook A Banana Flower Dish?
There are quite a few ways to prepare a banana flower recipe, depending upon your preference and personal taste.
The main thing to keep in mind when cooking any type of banana flower recipe is that the texture should remain soft and chewy so that the flower isn’t too hard or crunchy.
Another important aspect to consider when making this type of food is whether you would like to use raw or cooked seeds.
If you choose to consume the seeds raw, make sure that you don’t overcook them because they will lose some of their nutrient value after being heated up.
You may also decide to add other ingredients such as chili peppers, coconut milk, garlic, onions, ginger, etc., to spice things up.
It all depends on what kind of flavor you prefer in your meal.
What Is The Nutritional Value Of A Banana Flower Dish?
When you think about food, you probably consider the nutrition inside your body before anything else.
For example, the nutrients found in meat might make up less than 1% of your daily caloric intake, while vegetables can provide more than 50%.
While this may seem like a simple fact, it doesn’t tell us everything there is to know about the way our bodies function.
The truth is that all foods contain different amounts of vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and other essential nutrients.
And these components affect our energy levels, immune systems, skin, hair, bones, muscles, organs, etc.
It’s important to understand the role each nutrient plays when considering whether or not a certain meal will benefit your overall health.
But let’s get back to the subject at hand! If you’re looking for some new ways to add flavor to your diet, why not try cooking with banana flowers? Bananas are rich sources of fiber, potassium, vitamin B6, vitamin C, iron, folate, pantothenic acid, riboflavin, niacin, magnesium, and zinc.
So, what does that mean for you? Well, according to studies conducted by researchers at Louisiana State University, the following were the results for three dishes prepared using fresh banana flowers:
- A salad containing 10% of the total calories was shown to increase antioxidant capacity by 20-30%, compared to only 8-10% improvement after consuming 5% of the calories from raw spinach leaves.
- An omelet cooked with 15% of the banana flower mixture resulted in greater improvements in cholesterol levels (by 12%) and blood pressure (by 7%), compared to just 6% improvement in a similar omelet cooked with only 5% of the same mixture.
- Cooking with 30% of the flowers improved insulin sensitivity (by 13%) and triglyceride concentration (by 22%), compared to just 11% improvement seen in a control sample without any flowers present.
These findings suggest that banana flowers could help prevent heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure—all conditions associated with excess sugar consumption.
Can you use dried banana flowers?
You might wonder if dried banana flowers would work just as well as fresh ones, but unfortunately, no.
Dried banana flowers don’t absorb water as easily, so you won’t get the same level of nutrient absorption as you would with freshly picked flowers.
Drying the flowers removes some of their moisture content, making them harder to chew, swallow, and digest.
Plus, since the process takes place over time, the flowers lose their natural color and texture, too.
So, unless you really appreciate the look of fresh flowers, stick with fresh ones for maximum nutrient absorption.
What Are The Health Benefits Of Eating A Banana Flower Dish?
Banana flowers may not seem like a particularly appealing food option at first glance.
After all, there are many other more exotic foods out there that can help you live longer, such as snake or scorpion meat, or even snail eggs! However, banana blossoms aren’t just another example of strange exotic cuisine.
They actually contain plenty of nutrients that can benefit your physical well-being.
Let’s take a closer look at that.
1. Banana Flowers Are Rich In Vitamin C
Banana flowers don’t only taste good, they’re packed full of vitamins too.
According to research conducted by Dr.
Stephen Gullo, MD., PhD., these little guys are loaded with vitamin C.
The study found that every 100 grams (about 3 ½ ounces) of dried banana flower contains about 1,300 milligrams of vitamin C, making this superfood even better than oranges.
Dr.
Gullo said that while he was surprised by his findings, he wasn’t shocked because he knew that bananas were rich in vitamin C already.
2. It Helps Your Digestive System
Another important thing that bananas do is improve the way our digestive systems function.
Because bananas contain fiber, they make us feel fuller faster, so we tend to eat less throughout the day.
Bananas also keep cholesterol levels down, which helps prevent clogged arteries and heart disease.
So, next time you’re craving something sweet, opt for a bowl of banana flowers instead.
3. It Promotes Weight Loss
While bananas themselves aren’t specifically designed to aid weight loss efforts, the fact that they contain high amounts of potassium makes them great for helping us lose weight.
Potassium is essential for regulating blood pressure, keeping electrolytes in balance, and maintaining proper muscle contractions.
When you consume lots of potassium, you also increase insulin sensitivity, which means you burn fat easier.
4. You Can Use Them As A Natural Diuretic
Did you know that banana leaves can be used to treat kidney stones? That’s right! If you ingest enough of the stuff, it will help your body eliminate excess fluid from your system.
If you drink a lot of water when you experience symptoms of dehydration, banana leaves might be able to help relieve those symptoms.
Of course, since this isn’t recommended as standard medical treatment, you should speak with your doctor before trying anything different.
5. It Has An Anti-Inflammatory Effect On Our Bodies
When we think of anti-inflammatory foods, we often think of things like avocados, nuts, or berries.
These fruits and veggies definitely pack a punch when it comes to reducing inflammation, but bananas are right up there with them.
One study showed that the antioxidants contained within bananas could reduce swelling and pain caused by arthritis.
This is because antioxidants act as free radicals scavengers, helping our bodies fight off damage done by oxygen molecules.
Antioxidants are also involved in detoxification processes, which means that without them, our bodies would struggle to rid itself of toxins and waste products.
What Are Some Common Ways To Serve Banana Flower Dishes?
There are many different types of banana flower recipes out there.
Some are spicy and others sweet or savory, depending upon your preference.
The following list outlines some of the more popular choices available online today:
- Bittergourd (Solanum muricatum) – A bitter flavor that is usually cooked with ginger and garlic before being served.
- Chicken curry with banana flower buds – These can either be used fresh or pickled, according to taste.
- Chutney/pickle – Pickles made from banana flower buds.
- Pickled green mangoes – Usually eaten with rice.
- Desserts like banana flower milk pudding – A dessert made using banana flower milk combined with other fruits.
- Mango shake – A smoothie made with ripe banana flowers and ice cream.
- Tapioca balls – Made by combining mashed banana flower pulp with starch or flour.
- Fried banana flower buds – Crispy little snacks often consumed at wedding parties and festivals.
These are just a few examples of the wide variety of banana flower recipes out there.
If you don’t see anything that appeals to you here, there are plenty of other options available online, including several videos showing how to make these dishes (like this video).
So why do so many people prefer to eat the flowers instead of the fruit?
Are There Any Risks Associated With Eating A Banana Flower Dish?
While many would assume that just because something is pretty and colorful, it must automatically be good for us, this isn’t necessarily true.
The same goes for eating banana flower dishes.
In fact, there are plenty of reasons why these foods should not be eaten by anyone (regardless of age or health status).
Potential risk #1: Bacterial contamination
One common method used to prepare banana flower dishes involves cutting open the flowers and removing their contents before cooking them.
However, this can create an opportunity for bacteria to enter your body through the wound created during the process.
This is especially problematic when dealing with raw food like flower-based dishes since bacteria will grow more quickly due to lack of heat or light.
As such, always ensure that all food items are cooked thoroughly before consumption, no matter where they come from.
Potential risk #2: Allergies
Some people may find themselves allergic to certain fruits including bananas.
If you fall into this category, avoid using bananas altogether and opt for another type of fruit instead.
There could also be potential issues related to allergies if you consume too many types of fruits at once.
For example, if you typically use strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, then consuming too many different fruits might cause an adverse reaction.
Potential risk #3: Possible harmful chemicals
As mentioned above, bananas contain cyanide, which is toxic to humans.
Because of this, you should never attempt to eat a banana unless you know exactly how to properly handle one and remove the seeds first.
You don’t need to worry about eating the rest of the fruit though.
Additionally, while eating banana flowers won’t affect your health, there is still a chance that they could carry other chemicals that aren’t listed on the label.
To make sure you stay safe, ask questions regarding whether ingredients were tested for safety before being added to the product.
What Do Experts Say About The Benefits Of Eating A Banana Flower Dish?
As we mentioned above, many people like to consume bananas because they find them delicious.
This doesn’t just apply to adults; children are crazy for bananas too!
So, when it comes to eating banana flowers, it makes sense that young kids would be interested in consuming them.
But even though some people may think it strange or unusual, others will tell you that this type of food can actually provide health benefits.
One thing that everyone agrees on is that these types of dishes are extremely high in potassium content, which helps to lower blood pressure levels and prevent heart disease.
Another benefit of eating banana flower recipes is that they contain vitamin C, magnesium, iron, calcium, fiber, protein, B vitamins, antioxidants, and more.
These nutrients all help your body fight against diseases such as cancer and diabetes, so making sure you get enough of each nutrient every day is important.
And finally, there are other reasons why people may choose to make banana flower recipes over other types of foods.
Some people believe that these types of dishes help to reduce allergies, while others claim that they promote weight loss.
Ingredients
- 1 banana flower
- ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
- Salt to taste
Banana flower stir fry
- 2 teaspoon coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
- 1 teaspoon black gram
- 5-6 curry leaves
- 1 Medium Size Onion
- 3 teaspoon sambar powder
- 2 teaspoon Kashmiri red chili powder
- 2 teaspoon tamarind paste
- 3 teaspoon grated jaggery
Instructions
- Start by removing all of the purple bracts and throwing away the buds. The banana flower’s heart, or central core, will then become visible. Only the center core is being used for the stir-fry.
- The central core should be roughly chopped and added to a saucepan. Just enough water should be added to cover everything. When the mixture is ready, add a bit of salt and some turmeric powder, and then simmer it for 10 to 15 minutes, or until it softens. Remove the extra water, then set it aside.
- Over medium heat, add 2 teaspoons of coconut oil to the pan. Add the mustard seeds and urad dal to the hot oil and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the curry leaves after it begins to sear, then add the sliced onions. They should be sautéed until transparent.
- Cook for another minute or so after adding the red Kashmiri chili powder and sambar powder. The cooked banana hearts are now added. Add salt to taste as you sauté more.
- Jaggery and tamarind paste should now be added. Before turning off the heat, cook for a further three minutes.
Video
Nutrition
My blog is all about creating delicious meals with ingredients that are easy to find in your local grocery store. I’m passionate about making yummy meals that I can share with my friends and family.