Can You Eat Carrot Tops?

Anytime I buy carrots with green leafy tops and trim them off, I put them in the compost bin. It always feels like such a waste to me, so I started wondering - can you eat carrot tops? As it turns out, yes, you can!

Carrot greens are full of vitamins and minerals, and have a high potassium content, so they are good for you. However, they have a very bitter taste, which explains why they usually end up in the compost bin. There is some debate that carrot tops were among the bitter greens served at the first Passover in Egypt.

They can be eaten raw in salads if you like a little bitterness in your food. Chopping them up finely with some garlic and vinegar can cut the bitterness, and this makes a simple "pesto vinaigrette" that can be spread on bread or used as a marinade. Carrot tops can be sauteed with other vegetables with olive oil and garlic, and added to a variety of dishes such as casseroles, pizzas, and burritos. They can be cooked into soups and stews, and added to eggs.

The Carrot Museum has a bunch of recipes for carrot greens here, and they all look tasty!

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(Image: Kathryn Hill)

Comments (16)

I'm just delighted that there's a Carrot Museum!

Whenever I get a nice bunch of carrot greens, they go into my stockpot. They produce a rich brown, carrot-y stock that is just delightful.

Um... I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but I'm a botanist and have been taught that they're mildly toxic! See this NYTimes article from last year:

http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/the-toxic-salad/

...do you think that carrot greens would make a suitable pistou? I have a ridiculous amount of beet greens left, and was hoping to make soup. If I could use up the carrot tops at the same time, I would be thrilled...

I did a quick Google search on the internet, couldn't find any hard evidence either way on whether or not the carrot tops are really poisonous or not. I have thrown in a few in stir fries over the years and have not died yet :-D

Seriously, I grew up learning they were toxic... but then again, I can't remember where I picked up that info!

That's interesting that they're rumoured to be toxic. I haven't ever had the opportunity to eat carrot tops one way or another, since I'm either purchasing them at the store or or farmers market, both of which places don't have them with tops. However, we joined a CSA this year, and one of their recent newsletters talked about a carrot-top tea. Though I didn't brave that one, I did chop them up, saute them with olive oil and scallions, and add eggs. Wrap it up in a whole-wheat burrito, and breakfast was done. The greens chop beautifully; less messy than other greens, too. I'm a convert.

Hardly any places around here sell carrots with their tops still on. Our rabbit ADORES them though. So sometimes I will buy more expensive carrots with tops still on as a rabbit treat.

I tried several carrot top recipes a few years back and found them all hopelessly stringy and grassy. And I love bitter greens! The texture was just too much, though.

Yet another reason my backyard chickens are great - they love carrot tops (and any other veggie bits we don't want). :)

My mother (who is Thai) loves to make omelets with carrot tops. This is eaten with nam prik kapi, the incredibly stinky but tasty condiment made from shrimp paste, garlic, and other things. Her grocery store cuts the tops off the carrots, so she has asked them to save them for her in the back, but she's embarrassed to tell them that she eats them so she says they're for her pet rabbit.

If you don't have a pet of your own that will eat them, save them and give them to a local shelter or ASPCA that has rabbits and small animals, your greens won't go to waste and you'll have made a homeless animal's day!

Been eating carrot greens for over a year now.
You know whats toxic? The NY Times for printing ignorant articles. But then again, the media is just a pawn of the government, that wants to make sure that the public does not have the truth about how food can heal.

And fast food like mcd's is not toxic? What a joke!!

I just juiced the tops with my recipe.....now my throat feels like it is swollen and i feel a little dizzy with bitter taste in mouth and throat. The carrot tops were less than 1% of my total juice of carrots, apples, kale, oranges, cucumber, lime and celery. I just ruined 20 dollars of juice and I feel like crap. Don't listen to those quack sites that are saying it is okay to eat carrot tops. Trust me, my juice don't usually make me feel like I just OD'd on some bad drug. (must be why Poison Control center lists them as mildly toxic)

I know the original article is positive and well researched, but I read the comments... especially to Marinepatriot: Carrot greens have been eaten in Europe for a very long time, and are a market vegetable in France. There are lots of recipes how to use them in French cookbooks and on French websites. The French don't eat them raw though, although I tried without any reaction but I noticed raw they are chewy and not very good. There is an allergenic substance in carrot tops, so some people do get reactions. We really looked for warnings on the French websites, but the only one we found was to use the carrot tops very fresh.