It depends on the dishes and recipes you want to make. The most common means of adding saffron to a dish, so you can decide for yourself what works best for your recipe. Keep in mind that saffron is similar to a dried herb, in that it needs heat and hydration to draw out all of its aromatics, not to mention its rich golden color. Use one of the methods below to get the most out of every strand.

Saffron Powder

The easiest way to add saffron to your recipes is to grind the saffron. You're gonna need a mortar and pestle, kosher salt and sugar. Take a pinch of saffron, slap in the mortar and gridding, add kosher salt and sugar to grind the saffron. You may add a few spoons of liquid to let the saffron steep and release more flavor and coloring. Let it rest for about 30 minutes.

Saffron Water

Also named saffron tea, one of the most common ways of adding saffron to a dish is to first steep it in water. Literally this only requires adding saffron to water and letting them boil for fifteen minutes.

Saffron Milk

Like the last one, the saffron milk only needs to boil and add saffron for fifteen - twenty minutes.This one is perfect for desserts that need milk, if you want this unique taste of saffron you could make a tres leches cake.

Directly to dishes

Recipes that use a lot of liquid and take some time to cook can coax out saffron’s flavor and color without the need for a blooming step. The key is to add the saffron early o, allowing it enough time to bloom in the cooking liquid. Some recipes also call for an early step of dry toasting or oil toasting the saffron first, which makes the stamens more brittle, so they break apart in the stew or paella.

Benefits of cooking with saffron

Saffron is best known as a culinary herb, but it also has many potential health benefits. Research has proven it to be high in antioxidants, to have anti-inflammatory properties, as well as an appetite suppressant and a weight-loss aid. Saffron has a calmative effect and elevates your mood, it is therefore good to use as an antidepressant. It is often recommended to be consumed when you have depression, anxiety, Alzheimer disease, menstrual cramps, premenstrual syndrome.

Saffron is widely used as a spice, medicinal herb, and food coloring. Saffron is used in some folk medicine practices. Saffron extracts and its compounds show some potential for memory enhancement and protecting against certain types of cancer.

Each saffron flower has three stigmas and these are hand-picked and processed to create the saffron spice. The saffron spice can be consumed raw, cooked, or steeped in a liquid to make an extract or tea. Saffron is also effective for making vision better and treating age related macular degeneration.

Buy saffron online

Moonflowers Co offers the highest quality saffron in our online shop. Our saffron is hand-picked by women in Afghanistan. What to know before buying saffron? The saffron spice comes from the Crocus Sativus flower and is mostly grown in Afghanistan, Iran, India, Spain and Greece.

The quality of the saffron determines how strong the taste and scent will be. Moonflowers Co offers the super-negin variety which is the highest in safranal, crocin, and picrocrocin. The super-negin variety is the highest quality of saffron and you recognize it when you see that the threads are dark red, long stemmed and do not contain any yellow or orange parts. Moonflowers Co saffron is highly fragrant and aromatic.