Can You Eat Whole Cloves?

By Staff WriterLast Updated March 31, 2020

While whole cloves are edible, they are very powerful and strong, making them very undesirable to eat whole. When cooked whole in a dish, they are typically discarded without eating, used instead to flavor the dish as a whole.

When eating the spice is desired, it is best done by first grinding whole cloves into a fine powder and adding it to the food. Whole cloves lend a mild flavor to a dish when simmered or baked whole along with other ingredients. Caution should be used to avoid adding too much clove to a dish, especially when grinding fresh from whole cloves, as the freshly ground powder is stronger than store-bought ground cloves.