Wondering if you can eat carrot greens? Find out exactly how to dry and get recipes for how to eat carrot greens! It's easy and nutritious!
Our garden went so crazy this year and grew some of the biggest veggies I've ever seen in my life! This included carrots and their gorgeous greens!
Since I don't like to waste anything, I immediately starting researching if carrot greens are safe to eat, then started looking for carrot top recipes.
Turns out many people do eat them! Though it did take me a little time to find good information on them as some people call them "carrot greens". That makes total sense of course, I'm just not used to the term!
How to Dry and Use Carrot Tops
As I was harvesting carrots for canning, I also needed to deal with the carrot greens if I was going to keep them!
First, chop the green off just ABOVE the carrot top, so there isn't any actual carrot left on the greens. Then wash the greens well to remove bugs and debris.
The first time I dried my carrot greens, I started by putting them in the dehydrator at 95° until fully dried. However, the greens from my carrots were so huge that I could only fit 2 carrots worth in my 5 tray Excalibur dehydrator at a time!
That wasn't going to work at all...
So eventually I just bundled them in 5 carrot top bunches (after rinsing them well), tied them up with twine, and hung them from my pot rack to dry.
It took a lot longer for them to dry this way over the dehydrator method, but I was able to do more at a time and it was silent and hands off!
Whatever method you use, make sure they are thoroughly dried before continuing.
Once the carrot tops are completely dried, remove them from the bundles or trays and start picking off the leaves.
I chose to just keep the leaves and give the stems to the chickens. This allows them to be more of an herb when used in cooking.
I was left with quite a bit of stem "trash" for the chickens! Once I had all my leaves stripped off the stems, I added them to a glass jar for long term storage!
This is a half gallon mason jar and it's more than halfway full... and that's just the leaves from 5 carrot tops!! I could have crushed them down more, but I just hadn't at this point.
RELATED: How to Dry Herbs and Greens (Little Sprouts Learning)
Can You Eat Carrot Greens?
You may find a lot of conflicting information on this front...
Bottom line, homegrown carrot tops are not poisonous, but just be sure that you are actually eating organic carrot tops that you grew and not ones where harsh pesticides may have been used.
Just be really careful to avoid wild carrot green which have poisonous lookalikes!
Anyway, after researching various ways to eat these plentiful carrot greens, I really only found pesto recipes. The only problem is I don't like pesto, so I set out to see how my family might enjoy them.
Turns out they make a tasty addition to soups, salads, and teas!
PIN THIS FOR LATER!
How to Eat Carrot Tops and Carrot Greens
I'm sure you can come up with more ideas for carrot top recipes, but here are some of the ways we've been enjoying them!
- Add 3 tablespoons to chicken bone broth soup
- Add 2 tablespoon to a gallon of herbal tea
- Crush and sprinkle over a green salad for some extra vitamin C
- Add to spaghetti sauce
- Sprinkle onto a homemade pizza
- Make a pesto (for pesto loving family and friends)
- ... and more!
Carrot Top Nutrition
Although I haven't been able to find an official government analysis, it's reasonable to assume that carrot tops probably have a nutritional make up that is similar to their roots. This would imply that carrot tops provide vitamins A, B6, C and K, folate, manganese, niacin, potassium and thiamin when eaten.
This article from Only Foods even goes so far as to say that carrot greens have up to 6x more Vitamin C that carrots themselves and are high in chlorophyll.
This information is helpful. I am trying to improve my family’s health by gardening. Thank you.
Thank you Ruth! I wish you all the best on your journey, let me know if I can help!
I I add the carrot tops to my pot roast
Great idea! Thanks for sharing!
Carrots are in the same family as parsley. I’ve often loved eating the carrot greens in soups. Great idea for using them as pesto.
I’m coming to the party kinda late, but what a great idea! We always gave carrot tops and similar things to our hogs and chickens. Now I’m thinking they were eating almost a well as we were! :-)
Hope you get to try them soon!