Why turnips bitter

When cooked, they lose much of their bitterness. So if you have older leaves, sauteeing them in some olive oil, minced garlic, and adding a little bit of fresh ground salt is a winning combination. The white root vegetable will blend seamlessly into your potatoes and the flavors combine nicely, giving the resulting mash a sweeter flavor, but not shockingly different. If you taste-test these two vegetables one after the other, there is a significant difference in the flavor.

The texture may be similar, though potatoes are starchier than turnips. You can substitute one for the other in recipes, however, as they cook nearly the same. Although they are certainly not the same vegetable, so the flavor of your meal will be different. Turnips and rutabagas are from the same family, Brassica, and, as cruciferous root vegetables, they do have a similar taste. In fact, rutabagas are thought to be an ancient hybrid of cabbage and turnip. In many parts of the world, rutabagas are even called Sweedish turnips or, simply, Swedes.

Younger vegetables tend to be sweeter, and this is true for turnips, however rutabagas as a vegetable are naturally sweeter than turnips, even the young roots. A daikon radish, however, is milder and has more in common with turnips, as far as taste goes, though their texture is quite different.

A turnip actually looks like a large, overgrown white radish. Radish greens have quite a bit more heat than turnip greens do, but both tops taste like concentrated, green versions of their roots. A trace of bitterness is part of the flavor profile of turnip greens. Older greens can become objectionably so. If you find yourself with a batch of disagreeably bitter turnip greens, you have several options you can try. There are several reasons why the turnips from your garden may be bitter.

The most common is that they were allowed to grow too long before being harvested. Turnips start out slightly sweet with just a touch of a bitter note when young. The older they get, the more intense the bitter edge becomes. Typically, from sprout to harvest should only take about two months.

How can you prepare turnips to make them less bitter? Ask Question. Asked 11 years, 1 month ago. Active 9 months ago.

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Michael Natkin Michael Natkin I did happen to find some smaller "baby" turnips at the Farmer's Market, and they were much more appealing. I have not found a bitter turnip as long as you boil with about 1 tablespoon brown sugar. Turnips can be planted closely and thinned during the growing season. The thinned plants can be eaten for their mildly flavored greens.

Cooking turnip greens in boiling water and then discarding the water reduces the bitterness of the leaves. Some recipes recommend cooking them in a second pot of boiling water to further reduce the bitterness. However, much of the nutritional value of the turnip greens is lost to the water they were boiled in. Steaming, stir frying or adding to soups are methods that preserve the high mineral content of the greens.