# Are Habanero leaves edible ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 13, 2002, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147 "2002-10-13T23:30:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2002, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/1 "2002-10-13T23:30:52Z")
## While harvesting this years crop of peppers, I wondered if Habanero leaves ([Capsicum chinense](http://www-ang.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/engl/generic_frame.html?Caps_fru.html)) would be good in a salad. So I tasted one, and found it to have a pleasant flavor, somewhat like mustard greens. The trouble is that peppers, like potatoes, tomatoes, and deadly nightshade, are members of the [Solanaceae family](http://www.keil.ukans.edu/delta/angio/www/solanace.htm), which is is well known for producing poisonous alkaloids. Eating a few dozen of them might have _serious_ consequences. Googling on habaneros reveals that groundhogs, or some small furry mammal, find the leaves to be tasty, but nothing on whether humans can eat them. I also came up empty at several recipe sites. Does anyone, (perhaps Mangetout ?) know anything about the edibility of these leaves ? When potatoes, leaves, or haulms are green, To livestock must they ne’er be gi’en (ancient anon, re. solanine poisoning.) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/2 "2002-10-14T08:09:19Z")
Hmmm, I’ve never tried eating them; I’d be just as wary as you for exactly the same reasons, however, Google did turn up a couple of results for “capsicum leaves”, one of which describes them as an ingredient known as _Peperblad_ in several languages, [another link](http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/Books.htm) has a brief description of a : > [@](#): > > EDIBLE LEAVES OF THE TROPICS > Martin, Ruberte & Meitzner, 1998. PB, 194pp, 13 oz. $14.95 > Not just for the tropics, it includes many plants familiar to northern gardeners. An exhaustive compendium of plants with edible leaves, including an appendix of over 1500 species. Leaves provide important, vitamin-rich food, and many are highly productive, easily grown perennials. Great untapped potential food sources may be found: **leaves of Capsicum peppers** , broad bean, radish, nasturtium, sweet potato, celosia, peas, peanuts, eggplants, carrots and sesame have all been eaten, and the book covers hundreds of lesser-known plants like bidens, tamarind, malvas, kapok, erythrinas, moringa, etc. An excellent and useful work! My advice would be to see if you can track down a copy of the book, just in case there are any qualifiers to their edibility. I’ll keep looking and post again if I find anything else; I have a number of edible plant books at home. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/3 "2002-10-14T15:48:34Z")
I’ve found a claim that the [ensalada pepper](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=+%22ensalada+pepper%22) has edible leaves, and also a few sites that claim that “the tips” of pepper leaves are edible. The later claim makes me wonder about the rest of the leaf. However, it turns out that the local university has a copy of “Edible Leaves of the Tropics”, so I should know more this afternoon. -Thanks 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/4 "2002-10-14T21:59:13Z")
**Edible Leaves of the Tropics** has this to say: > [@](#): > > Other valuable solanaceous vegetables useful for edible green leaves are the peppers. The leaves of _Capsicum annuum_ L. (green pepper) retain their texture well on cooking, have a mild flavor with slight bitterness that is reminiscent of the green fruit. Leaves of _Capsicum frutescens_ L. (tabasco pepper) give off a pungent aroma when they are cooked. Sufficient pungency remains in the firm cooked leaves to add a special appeal. In Malaysia the leaves of the weed _Lycium chinense_ L. are eaten, particularly with pork. Their general advice: > [@](#): > > Some caution should be exercised in eating leaves of plants that yield alkaloids. The amounts normally used in a cooking dish should not be harmful. Cooking of questionable vegetables is always desirable. I’ve steamed a few leaves from Habanero, and Cayenne plants, and found them quite tasty. If I’ still alive in a few days, I shall move on to “Chicken breasts in lime butter, served on a bed of habanero leaves.” The wiser course of action is probably to hold off on using the raw leaves as salad greens until I get a better feel for how the cooked ones behave. ELotT has this on potato leaves: > [@](#): > > The foliage of the potato _Solanum tuberosum_ L. contains a poisonous alkaloid, and throughout the literature are frequent references to the poisonous leaves. Nevertheless, the young leaves of the potato are sometimes eaten. Their protein content is twice that of the tuber. So if you happen to feel like dining on the edge some evening… ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/5 "2002-10-14T22:06:37Z")
Isn’t Solanine cumulative in effect (or partially so)? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/6 "2002-10-15T23:40:44Z")
I would certainly hope that solanine poisoning is not cumulative in the way you imply, since this [government sponsored report](http://ntp-server.niehs.nih.gov/htdocs/Chem_Background/ExecSumm/ChaconineSolanine.html) tells us that the average american eats 12.75 mg solanine and other potato glycoalkaloids per day. Brits and germans probably consume similar amounts. Apparently there’s been no research on long term human toxicity (see report); but as a glyco-steroid, solanine probably accumulates to some extent in the liver. Lots of them do. That means that if you eat too much over too long a time period, the concentration will build and you can get chronic poisoning. However, if you decrease your daily intake, the solanine will gradually be flushed from the body like most other substances. Otherwise we’d have all died from potato poisoning years ago. Here’s a link with [less detail](http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/courses/as625/1999term/andrew/toxic.htm) than the govt. report. Paging forward and back provides a nice overview of solanine in food crops. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/7 "2002-10-15T23:48:54Z")
That was in fact what I meant when I said partially cumulative; I was just too lazy to explain it the way you did. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/8 "2020-04-19T14:11:02Z")
Good gosh this is an old thread. Turns out Edible Leaves of the Tropics is now available at the internet archive: [Edible leaves of the tropics : Martin, Franklin W : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/CAT83784383/mode/2up) Newer editions at Amazon etc. If you are wondering why, someone asked elsewhere, so I had to look it up. SDMB was easiest. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/9 "2020-04-19T14:15:55Z")
Did you ever try “Chicken breasts in lime butter, served on a bed of habanero leaves.” ? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/10 "2020-04-19T14:26:10Z")
I think the peppers were Cayenne, but yeah, the dish was great! All the peppers I’ve tried have similar tasting leaves. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/11 "2020-04-19T14:46:43Z")
It’s encouraging to see that **Squink** is still alive after all these years of eating pepper leaves. Related question: I commonly see [ornamental Capsicum varieties](http://gardenerspath.com/plants/annuals/grow-ornamental-peppers/) advertised as being edible although almost all of them are reported to be extremely hot. Are there any on the market that are actually toxic?\* \*note that another species, Solanum pseudocapsicum (Jerusalem cherry) which is sometimes sold as an ornamental around Xmas time is said to be quite toxic (berries or leaves). ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/12 "2020-04-19T15:44:21Z")
I’ve eaten the “black pearls”, and the little cayenne looking ones; can’t tell which cultivar. None were either hot enough or toxic enough to kill. The Iranian woman down the street harvests them each fall for food use when they dig them out of the local ornamental gardens. I collect coleus and banana roots (for overwintering) myself. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-habanero-leaves-edible/132147/13 "2020-04-19T17:13:02Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Hmmm, I’ve never tried eating them; . Mange presque tout ?