Eating broccoli plants

Not just the crown and shoots, but the leaves and stem as well. The broccoli 'flowers' that we eat comprise about 20% of the plant's mass. I used to compost or feed the rest of the plant to my chickens. But now that I'm growing 25-50 plants in the spring and fall, that's a lot of valuable produce to be discarding. Here is a nutritional label for 1 ounce of raw broccoli leaves. The label came from here. Check out the amount of Vitamins A and C.



As a starting place, the youngest leaves on the plant work well in fresh salads. The medium size leaves are perfect as a substitute for cabbage in cabbage rolls, or just steamed. The older, bigger leaves are good for throwing into soups and stews (They add great color to bean soups). The main stalk can be peeled and the inside eaten raw as a snack or dipped into veggie dips.

Last year, I juiced and froze a bunch of leaves to add to winter carrot juices. A little bit goes a long way; it can easily overpower everything else in the juice.

I've made broccoli rolls that are quite good.

This year I'm going to bag up and freeze some leaves to have ready for next winter's soups. The majority of recommendations that I've found are to blanch the leaves first.

Cauliflower, brussel sprout, and cabbage leaves can all be used the same ways.

Share your favorite method for eating broccoli plants.

Boffer this is excellent information!

We new you could eat the leaves of broc and cabbage...did know that you also could eat cauliflowers leaves too.....maybe thats a given.... .....but wow....90% v-A and 43% v-C ....that really makes one think more about not worrying to much that we are unable to grow our own oranges here in the PNW

when throwing these leaves into the compost bin, I have always had a feeling of such waste.....one reason I want chickens so bad...but thats another story....

We believe one day sooner then later we are really going to depend and need every bit of produce we can harvest from our own gardens.....

as soon as our cole crops are big enough we shall harvest some broc leaves and make wraps with them :drunken:

happy gardening
rose

You can eat the broccoli flowers too - some of our farmers package them in little plastic clamshells and sell them!  Intense flavor - yum & kids love them!

Using all of these leaves as a wrap is easy and so good for you.
Vitamins A, C, E & K - Calcium, chlorophyll, magnesium - greens rock - juice it and use it!!!!

Great ideas here!

Peel and shred the stalks and use the same way you do shredded cabbage for a broccoli slaw.  Sliced stalks are also great for stir fry.  Saves the florets for eating raw with dips.

Kay