Milkweed Pods: How to Gather, Prepare, and Eat This Summer Vegetable

Common milkweed pods are a native vegetable that could be as familiar at summer greenmarkets as okra. As a food, milkweed still resides on the foraging fringes, or on rare restaurant menus, despite having been valued by Native Americans in regions throughout its range. Like okra, milkweed pods herald sweltering weather and are ready to harvest when crickets warm up and cicadas begin to zing. While succulent okra originates in Africa, and is grown as an annual crop in the United States, common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is a cold-hardy perennial indigenous to eastern North America. It has edible shoots, buds, flowers, and immature pods. And it is one of the most valuable milkweed hosts for monarch butterfly larvae.

Here’s why to plant common milkweed as a vegetable, and how to prepare milkweed pods once you have gathered a clutch.

Photography by Marie Viljoen.

Dozens of milkweeds are native to North America. Monarchs, and hundreds of other insects, rely on them all for food. It bears repeating that the species we are discussing as human fare is Asclepias syriaca.

All parts of cooked common milkweed taste like a mild green vegetable, along with a distinctive sweetness. It is never bitter. If you have collected, or grow, a milkweed whose distinctive white sap does taste bitter (raw or cooked), it’s a different species. (Others may be edible, but we are not addressing them here.)

Common milkweed blooms in early to midsummer. Its plump umbels of blossoms are richly scented and they are edible in their own right, as are the immature green clusters of buds that precede them.

Milkweed pods form about three weeks after a flower has been pollinated. More than the spring shoots or flower buds, they taste uniquely like the scent of the flowers, their flavor coming from the soft white seeds and their pre-silk nestled inside rough, green capsules. While the pods are immature, before the silk has strengthened and the seeds hardened, the entire milkweed pod is edible. (Later, as the capsule toughens, the seed-and-silk cluster inside can be popped out and cooked alone, before the silk becomes tough.)

Despite the fact that this striking native plant is beautiful in bloom, supports hundreds of insect species, and is edible from nose to tail (as it were), it remains unusual in cultivation. I have yet to hear of a farmer growing it for the table, but perceptions shift: Ten years ago no one was bringing invasive and edible Japanese knotweed to market, either, and that has begun to change.