How to Cook Radishes, Health Benefits and More

If you’re asking, “Hey! Can you cook radishes?” you’re not alone. Plenty of people shave raw ones thinly and then use them to punch up flavor in salads—or they simply add a bit of butter and salt to them before popping them into their mouths. Doing so adds zing to the palate!

If you’re wondering about cooked radishes, though, and how they fit into flavorfully healthy diets, consider this plan:

• Order some delicious, farm-fresh radishes.
• Set aside the ones you’ll use in a raw application.
• Roast the rest!

“Fall radishes,” Chef Jamie Simpson says, “benefit from a good hard roast, just like you might do with carrots or parsnips. Radishes respond well to caramelizing.”

You can quarter your radishes, he says, and then throw them into a hot cast iron with vegetable oil. Once seared, you can put them into a hot oven. When done, add a bit of salt and butter. “This is super simple,” Jamie says, “and when I talk about this technique, people say, ‘Wow! I didn’t know I could do this.’”

Through this process, “the real spiciness dissipates,” he explains, “and you’re left with something sweet and beautiful. Tender. Juicy. An unexpected little bite of flavor.”

Radish Recipes

Next up: here are radish recipes:

• Fried Egg on Toast with Salted Herb Butter and Radishes
• Fermented Winter Radish
• Squash Toast (combination two)
• Pan Roasted Winter Radish
• Mixed Green Salad with Shaved Root Vegetables
• Lettuce Wraps

Beside being wonderfully delicious, radishes are also nutritious.

Radish Health Benefits

According to our Health and Wellness Director Dr. Amy Sapola, there are wonderful health benefits of radishes with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention including them on their list of Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables.

Plus, she adds the following:

• Radishes contain naturally occurring nitrates. Ways this can benefit people include how nitrates may help to lower blood pressure:
  • during periods of high blood pressure
  • at rest in someone with a disease state (like cardiovascular disease)
  • during exercise in healthy persons without having a reducing effect when blood pressure is normal
  • Note from Amy: There may be no effect on people on hypertensive medications.
• This delicious root vegetable contains glucosinolate and isothiocyanate, which may:
  • help to regulate blood sugar levels
  • increase adiponectin production
• Radishes provide plenty of digestive benefits, thanks to their fiber. In fact, ¼ lb. of radish contains 1.6 grams of fiber.
• They provide potassium, a mineral that many people in the United States don’t get enough of. The ¼ lb. of radish that provide fiber also gives you 233 mg of potassium.
• Radishes also provide calcium, which supports bone and cardiovascular health. A quarter pound = 25mg of calcium.

Besides that, Amy shares, multiple studies indicate how regularly eating cruciferous vegetables can lower your risk of cancer—and that includes the remarkable radish.

Regeneratively Farmed Radishes

Not all vegetables are equal with our regeneratively farmed crops having up to 500% more minerals than the USDA baseline. This earth-friendly way of farming also rachets up the flavor for a true win/win.

Healthy soil . . . healthy crops . . .  healthy people . . . healthy planet.

In season, you’ll often find radishes in your vegetable boxes and you can also order them separately.