When you have a large crop of borage from the garden or farmstand, you don't have time to casually include it in complicated recipes or to frantically figure out how to use it up before it goes bad without getting sick of it. You want to make the most of your harvest and to actually enjoy it.
Here at Plant to Plate, we like to keep things simple! Here are some of my favorite ways to use or preserve borage:
- Add the flowers and leaves to egg dishes like omelets and quiches.
- Add the flowers and leaves to soups. Learn how to make a basic soup here.
- Add the flowers, leaves, and seeds to broths.
- Add the flowers and leaves to a hot cereal with a base like oats, rice, amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, or sorghum. See our Interesting Hot Cereal article here for more information.
- Use the flowers and leaves as Decor in an Interesting Salad. (Wondering why I capitalized those letters? Read more about Interesting Salads here!)
- Make a Simple Salad. A few ideas for Simple Salad pairings with borage leaves and flowers are as follows:
- Cucumbers and manchego
- Cucumbers and lettuce
- Arugula and strawberries
- Add the flowers and leaves to other salads.
- Make infused vinegar. Borage-infused vinegar makes a fantastic salad dressing, among other uses. The flowers, leaves, and seeds can all be added to the vinegar mixture. Borage can be infused in vinegar on its own or in combination with other herbs like lemon balm, lemon verbena, spearmint, or peppermint.
- Make infused oil. Borage-infused oil can be used as a salad dressing or drizzle. It can also be further processed into lotions, balms, and more. Infuse borage seeds in oil to make this preparation.
- Make a syrup. Borage flower syrup is a great addition to coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. It can be a standalone simple syrup, or it can be combined with other herbs like spearmint, peppermint, thyme, or others. Check out our article on how to make an herbal syrup here.
- Make herbal honey. An herbal honey is a delicious way to preserve the herbal properties of your borage flowers, extend their shelf life, and get benefits of honey too.
- Make a tea. Borage flower tea is best prepared as an infusion. Borage seed tea is best prepared as a decoction. Borage can also be added to tea blends.
- Add it to a tea blend. A few ideas for infusion blends with borage flowers are as follows:
- Mints like peppermint and spearmint
- Rose petals
- Lavender
- Chamomile
- Hibiscus, marshmallow, and thyme
- Make a tincture. The suggested herb:solvent ratio for a borage flower and/or seed tincture is 1:5 at 50% alcohol. Learn more about tinctures here.
- Make a jam or jelly. Borage jams and jellies can be canned or frozen. The flowers are the main parts used for jams and jellies.
- Dry the flowers, leaves, and seeds to preserve them. See our How to Dry Your Herbs articles here for more information.
Further Reading
Growing borage? Check out these quick facts like its best growing conditions, companion plants, and expected yields.
Borage is also featured in these articles: