I love the beauty of edible flowers and so flowering chives recipe ideas appeal to me so much! Here are 3 ways to use the edible, delicious blossoms.

I don’t like the idea of wasting what I have. My garden chives produce the most beautiful blossoms in the spring. While they bring beneficial pollinators to the garden, I love to look for ways to use these in the kitchen too. That’s where these recipes come in.

What are Flowering Chives?

In the spring, chives are one of the first things to flower in the garden. It brings bees buzzing and it also is one of the first harvests of the year!

Those flowering chives taste a bit similar to the stem portion we normally eat, but they do have their own distinct flavor. They also impart a beautiful pink hue!

Because they are so delicious, I’m always looking for flowering chives recipe ideas to utilize these beautiful edible blooms.

Prepping Flowering Chives

Step 1 – pick the chive blossoms

Once the blossoms are in full bloom, you’ll want to pick them. The photo above was taken a few days before I harvested the flowers. You can see the the blossoms aren’t fully open, so that was not the ideal time to take them.

I waited just a couple more days and then only took the ones that were fully open. The following week I harvested a few more that had opened up. I think I’ll even get one more good harvest before they’re gone!

These are super easy to pick. You don’t even need scissors! Just put your first finger and middle finger under the blossom. Squeeze a little and slide your fingers up toward the blossom. It just pops right off!

Step 2 – wash well

I always do a quick rinse with Trader Joe’s fruit wash in some water. Just utilize whatever you normally use when washing your fruits and veggies.

I swish them around in the TJ’s wash, rinse them, and then throw them in the salad spinner to get all the moisture out of them. Sometimes there are little ants and bugs in the blossoms, so do NOT skip the washing and rinsing portion!

Once they are rinsed and spun, you can get started on the recipes! The first one uses them chopped finely, but you’ll leave them whole for the other two!

Flowering Chives Recipes Ideas:

This is unbelievably incredible and SO easy! I do it the same way I make other flavored cream cheeses. It’s super simple and doesn’t need to be mixed with a mixer, especially if you use room temperature cream cheese.

How to Make Chive Blossom Cream Cheese

Chop the clean flowering chives

Use the above instructions to wash, rinse, and spin the blooms. Then finely dice about 1/4c. of them.

Soften cream cheese

Take 4oz (1/2 a bar) of cream cheese out of the fridge and let it soften until it’s room temperature. This isn’t totally mandatory, but it does make the mixing so much easier!

Mix

Using a fork, mix the softened cream cheese with the chive blossoms. You don’t have to be super delicate. Just work them in until they are evenly spread throughout. Isn’t it so beautiful and springy!?

Serve immediately or wait 24 hours

This is so fragrant that you can serve it immediately. But like chili, if you let it sit for 24 hours, the flavors meld together and make it taste even better!

Note: My ratio on this is 1/4c. to half a block of cream cheese. However, if you don’t have enough blossoms, you can always add some of the chives to it as well! Additionally, if you don’t like it that strong, you can always double the cream cheese for a slighter hint of chive.

How to store chive blossom cream cheese

You can store this in an airtight container or glass mason jar in the refrigerator. I used this adorable 4oz Ball Jar with an old fashioned lid I had gotten from an estate sale. Isn’t it so cute!?

In order to keep it fresh, go by the “use by” date on your block of cream cheese. That’s a pretty safe time frame to use.

How to use chive blossom cream cheese

My original plan for this chive blossom cream cheese was kind of boring. I wanted to use it on sourdough bagels in the morning. It would have been SO good! Unfortunately, 80 degree days and no air conditioning aren’t conducive to making bagels.

So I got hungry one afternoon and found some pretzel crisps and thought they would pair beautifully! Boy was I right!

I have a bit left, so I’m planning on using it as a spread on tortilla wraps with deli turkey and tons of fresh veggies!

This would also be perfect on a charcuterie board! It would be such a great addition because it’s something different, and it adds some really pretty color too.

I also love to add a scoop of cream cheese when I’m making pasta. I’ll sauté a bunch of veggies, add a little chicken stock and cream cheese and then toss the pasta in. This would be the perfect cream cheese to use for that dish!

How to Make Chive Blossom Infused Oil

This is a delicious flowering chives recipe that you can use in SO many things! It’s really easy to make and you’ll be so impressed with yourself!

Put cold olive oil in pan with a handful of chive blossoms

I used 1 cup of oil, and a handful of chive blossoms. I probably should have measured them, but honestly this is less of a recipe and more of a technique. This is the way I always infuse my oil with garlic, so I just followed the same process.

Heat the oil and flowers

Turn on the heat and let the oil get up to a simmer. Don’t let it boil. You just want a little simmer. It will tend to bubble around the edges of the flowers.

Turn off heat and let sit for 45 min

Once you have a good simmer going (it should look like the picture above), turn off the heat and set a timer for 45 minutes to give it time for the flowers to steep and flavor the oil.

Strain out flowers

After the oil has spent 45 min sitting off the heat, strain out the flowers and store in an airtight glass jar. I’m keeping mine in this low 8oz Mason Jar.

How to store chive blossom oil

You can just store this with your other oils on a shelf if you’d like. Alternately, you can also keep it in the fridge if you feel better doing that! It can store for a long time – many months!

How to use chive blossom oil

There are so many ways to use this!

Today, I sautéed veggies in it, and then added leftover grilled chicken, brown rice that I had meal prepped, and a little soy sauce for a 5 minute fried rice that was amazing!

I would totally use this as a dipping sauce for some crusty sourdough bread.

This would taste so good in a homemade vinaigrette – Find my vinaigrette recipe on this blog post.

I often use infused olive oil in place of red sauce on pizza. This oil would be killer! Just make sure you either put a sprinkle of salt on it, or use a salty cheese with it like asiago or parmesan. You want to make sure it has enough flavor.

Honestly, any way you would use regular olive oil, you can swap out for this and you’ll just have the most delicious hint of flowering chives.

How to Make Chive Blossom Vinegar

This flowering chives recipe is so yummy and so easy! If you like to make your own vinaigrette, this is a MUST!

Fill a mason jar with clean chive blossoms

Once your chive flowers are cleaned, rinsed, and spun, fill a mason jar with the blossoms. Don’t push them down to stuff more in. Just gently fill it up. I used an 8oz Jelly Jar, but you can make this in any size jar. Just make sure it’s all filled up with the blossoms.

This is such a great way to do it because if you only have a small handful, you can make a little jar, but if you’ve got a large harvest, you can use a large jar! It’s so versatile.

Cover chive flowers with vinegar

Pour regular white vinegar over the blossoms until they are covered.

Cover and put in dark cabinet

Put the lid on the jar and store in a dark cupboard.

After 1 week, strain

At around the one week mark, check on your vinegar. If it has taken on a rose glow, you’re done! If it doesn’t look pink yet, you can leave it for a few more days. Once it is pink, strain the flowers out and throw them away. Most of the color will have seeped out of them and into the vinegar.

How to store chive flower vinegar

Store it in an airtight glass jar wherever you keep your vinegar! I keep mine in a dark cabinet and it can stay there for many months!

How to use chive blossom vinegar

I almost always use this vinegar to make a delicious and subtle chive flavored vinaigrette. If you want my basic recipe for vinaigrette, it’s located in this post. It’s funny because I was using my chive blossom vinegar to make it that day too!

Another way that would be really good to use this would be as the vinegar/lemon juice portion of a marinade. Don’t you think it would make chicken or beef taste so yummy?

I hope you enjoyed these flowering chives recipe ideas! I’d love to hear what you think if you try them out!

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