Creeping bellflower is a common edible weed in yards and gardens, spreading aggressively through seeds and rhizomes. It's one of the most difficult invasive plants I know of to eradicate. The good news is that it's edible, tastes great, and since it's invasive you can eat as much as you like. In this post I'll go over some background of the plant, and how to cook its three edible parts.
Background and Identification
Creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides), also known as rampion bellflower, is transplant from Eurasia. It was apparently imported as an ornamental, marketed as an attractive flower that thrives in shade or sun. Just like wild parsnip, it rapidly spread from gardens to yards, to forests and fields.
Now, the plant is widespread across the United States. It's highly invasive and will outcompete native plants, including, but not limited to native tall bellflower (C. americana) which is a good substitute in the garden. It's a common yard weed in Wisconsin and Minnesota where I forage but is found across North America.
The plant is so widespread that in my neighborhood, and many others, people have taken to sharing flyers about the plant or posting signs in their yards to warn others when it blooms. I gathered a few examples from around the U.S. and Canada for you below. Along with garlic mustard, it's the only invasive species I know given this treatment where I live.
Creeping bellflower is only one of a multitude of plants in the genus Campanula. While it's the most common variety I see, there's also C. punctata, and the Korean C. takesimana, which will also be invasive.
There's also the related balloon flower (Platydocon grandiflora) which is often sold in garden stores and isn't as aggressive as C. rapunculoides. While I can't speak for every plant in the genus, all of the aforementioned are edible, from leaves and tender tops to flowers and roots.
Urban foragers should be on the lookout for areas where groups of plants seem discolored, distressed, wilting, or otherwise unhappy. Chemical herbicides like RoundUp / glyphosate may be used to eradicate the plant, which none of us want to eat.
Removing Creeping Bellflower
I've assisted people in removing the plant, and it can be difficult. The best way to remove in my opinion, it is repeatedly digging up the roots, which can go down as far as two feet. Any remaining root pieces left in the ground may still sprout, but intentional, continued pressure and digging can help to keep it under control. It's difficult to eradicate, but it's not as bad as, say, Japanese Knotweed.
Creeping Bellflower's Edible Parts
There's essentially three edible parts of the plant: the young greens and tender tops, the flowers and roots. All parts of the plant are mild-flavored and surprisingly good to eat. In his Field Guide to Edible Plants of Eastern North America, my friend, Foraging Authority Sam Thayer says:
"These are one of our best cooked root vegetables, and the leaves have the slightly fishy taste characteristic of the genus; they're one of my favorite fried greens."
Bellflower Greens
These are cooking greens as opposed to something you'd put in a salad as they're slightly hairy, although they could work in a dish raw if they were very finely sliced or minced.
There's two edible stages where I'll harvest the greens to eat. The first is the basal leaves of the plant (shown above) which, if you're unlucky enough to have them in your yard, will probably look like a reasonably thick carpet of greens.
Bellflower Tips
The second stage is the young tender tips of the flower stalks that resemble a small vegetable (shown below). Both stages can make a good addition to a dish of cooked leafy greens.
Unlike a lot of other greens, ground elder for example, creeping bellflower stays relatively tender throughout the growing season. It's not going to be horribly tough (or comparatively tender) whenever it's picked.
The flavor is mellow and neutral-tasting with a hint of vegetal sweetness. There is no bitterness or strong flavors. When cooked until tender, they make a good addition to a pan of wilted greens where their taste can offset stronger tasting greens. I like it in a blend of summer greens like purslane, lady's thumb, lambs quarters and amaranth.
Cooking the Greens
To cook the greens, harvest young basal leaves or the tender growing tips of the flower stalks and blanch them in salted boiling water for a few moments until they're tender and taste good to you. They can also be steamed.
Drain them well and they can be added to recipes where you'd add cooked spinach or kale.
White Snakeroot
Although bellflowers are easy to identify in bloom, when harvesting the greens, specifically the tender tops, you'll want to make sure you're confident in your identification. White snakeroot leaves look similar at this stage, is poisonous, and grows nearby in some places I harvest. The flowers make the two easy to separate, as you can see in the infographic below.
Flowers
The purple bell-shaped flowers are attractive and stand up to a few days in the fridge or in a vase as part of a floral arrangement. I often add them to an edible centerpiece bouquet for summer dinners, picking the flowers at the table for the last course as a desert garnish.
Add some to a salad and they'll make a good conversation piece. Many people are already familiar with the flowers, so t's a good introductory plant for beggining foragers. Everyone I've ever served them to has enjoyed them.
The flowers have a mild, non-descript flavor. They can be used to garnish sweet or savory dishes, and people always comment on how attractive they are when I serve them.
I love the blue color, especially on deserts with dark fruit and berries.
Creeping Bellflower Roots / Campanules / Doraji
Finally, the roots are also edible. In Korea, the roots of the related balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflora) are known as doraji. The roots are boiled and stir-fried, becoming one of a number of banchan (side dishes) served with the famous rice dish Bibimbap. There's a DIY version of it in my upcoming book Fauna.
You can even buy balloon flower roots on Amazon. Know that the cultivated balloon flower roots are much more bitter than creeping bellflower roots, so they're usually soaked or blanched in water before cooking.
In France, the roots of Campanulas are known as campanules-a good tip I gleaned from French Forager Francois Couplan via Samuel Thayer. Having eaten them myself, I can see why.
After a quick boil in salted water, C. rapunculoides roots have a tender texture and taste a bit like artichokes. The taste is very similar to oyster plant / salsify, but the roots are thinner. Note that the roots pictured in this post are tiny, and older plants can produce clumps of tender, white roots the size of carrots.
To cook creeping bellflower roots, dig the roots, wash and scrub them, then cut into manageable pieces and boil until just tender. They usually don't take long and cook in a minute or two.
Once the roots are tender, cut them into pieces and toss with some salt and melted butter. Below I've tossed them with some homemade ramp leaf butter and a few violet flowers. They taste remarkably similar to artichokes.
Creeping Bellflower Recipes
While I don't have specific recipes with bellflower in the title, the greens can be cooked in any recipe that calls for spinach or kale. They can be blanched, steamed, chopped and mixed into a filling, pureed into a green soup or smoothie, and just about anything you can think of.
One of my favorite ways to enjoy the greens is mixed with other greens in a big blend, blanched until just tender, then quickly tossed in a hot pan with garlic, chili and olive oil. Finish it with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. You can use my recipe here.
An even simpler way to enjoy the greens is in a classic Horta: boil the plants in salted water until tender, drain and serve with salt, olive oil and lemon juice.
If you get some roots, try cooking them like Japanese do, kinpira-style. Thinly julienne the roots with an equal proportion of carrots, then quickly stir fry with a splash of soy and sesame oil.
Once the kinpira's done it can be served warm, cool, or room temperature, or you can go further and enjoy them Korean style, as one of a number of garnishes for a dish of rice (Bibimbap), shown below.
Do you battle creeping bellflower where you live? Have you been successful? Have you eaten it? If you have please leave a comment!
Ann Cantelow
I snack on the leaves and flowers while gardening or out walking around the neighborhood. I like eating the flowers with their base part because I usually find a little hit of sweet nectar mixed in with the gentle taste of the petals. I put the flowers on top of deviled eggs for a festive effect to bring to summer potluck parties. Sage flowers are also cute on deviled eggs, and mustard flowers add a great sharp taste and are tasty snacking while gardening.
Alan Bergo
Thanks Ann.
jenny
It's early June in MN and the bellflower is popping up and hasn't flowered yet. I've been eating the very top of the plant in salads, just the top three leaves. I have so many plants in my yard, I can easily make a salad quickly by nipping these off. Then I pull the whole rest of the plant, cut the root off (at this stage too small to be worth it and I can't get at the big lateral root for now) and sautee the greens. I've cleared the patch that's by my back door in a couple days, just foraging for a salad and a single serving sautee.
Luana
Hi! Just wondering if they are still edible later in the summer, as I didn’t learn of this till now (July)
Alan Bergo
It’s technically edible, but it depends on what part of the plant we’re discussing. Leaves are edible when tender and young before flowering. Flowers are edible. Roots are dug in the spring or fall as food.
Janene
I love creeping bellflower! It’s the first thing ready in my garden. Yes it’s a weed and invasive. So I go to a spot where I don’t want it, pull about 15 plants, cut off the roots so I don’t get dirt in the batch. I then rinse and pull off the leaves so the rib stays on the stem if possible. Then into a pot with a little water, olive oil, salt and a diced garlic clove. When the water is mostly gone, time to serve and eat!
Alan Bergo
Thanks Janene, I keep a small patch on my property that’s not allowed to go to seed.
Sara
I have millions of these invasives in my yard, but HAPPILY they provide TONS of salad for our chickens who eat them voraciously. Those darn tuber roots are like sideways carrots & make it nearly impossible to eradicate, and they keep growing leaves eternally. So you will NEVER EVER run out of chicken “salad!” It’s even WORSE than bindweed! With that & comfrey your chickens will have free food all summer. BUT if you don’t have it, NEVER buy or plant bellflower, it’ll take over everything!!
A.F.
I've eaten the stems (basal, not flower) raw just now (mid spring) from what seems like overwintered plants. They are really nice. Thick, juicy, crunchy and mildly sweet. I think I'll be adding them pemanently to my early spring garden greens menu! Looking forward to trying a bigger bunch pan fried with some garlic.
I have dug the tubers before and eaten them raw. They taste like a very mild, earthy carrot. Haven't tried cooking them yet.
DB
I don't want to eat it, I want to kill it!
Alan Bergo
You can do both.
Nancy Strong
My first attempt to eradicate the roots yielded tubers 7" X 2" thick. It never occurred to me to eat it but years of digging frustration later I would like to boil them, just for spite!! The tubers are deeper in ground than the first look, averaging 6-7 deep and they escaped my efforts for years.
Debi Ulrey-Crosby
I have lots of this horrible weed as well. I'm going to try eating some. Maybe then it will just disappear. You know, kind of like other things do once they have a real value...they disappear. I would not be sad if it disappeared in my yard. Every spring I feel a little guilty about ripping out the flowering stems because the bees, especially bumble bees (my absolute favorite), love the flowers. But I try to make up for it by planting other flowers.
Alan Bergo
Hi Debi. Yes this plant is really invasive. You have to dig the roots out and go deep to really make a difference.
Ingrid
Wonder if anyone has tried making tea with the flowers 🙂
Alan Bergo
They're not worth using, pretty but no flavor.
Amanda
What are your thoughts on drying and making tea from the flowers themselves?
Alan Bergo
Hi Amanda, the flowers aren't aromatic or interesting enough dried imo.
Cathy
I have dug out what I can, roots & tubers, from a patch in a front garden. Laid down a large piece of landscape material ,covered with bark mulch. Fingers crossed that in the spring of 2026 I won't be working at this project again.
Alan Bergo
Good luck. It can be a real pain as those pesky roots go deep.
Lise Gray
Have made tea with it! 🥰
Rachel
Yay! Making modified gluten-free green cakes with a Korean flavor tonite to try them out and welcome a new weed to the table. Thank you for inspiring.
Alan Bergo
Hey that’s great. I’m actually going to go dig Bellflower roots finally next week and I’m so excited. Have fun.
Lou Helf
Did you try the roots? Also, I'm so excited to learn about this because I have SO MUCH creeping bellflower in my yard.
Alan Bergo
Yes! Thanks for the reminder. Unfortunately I wasn't able to dig them myself, so the roots my friend gave me were pretty thin. But, even at the thickness of a pen or your pinky they're pretty good. Very mild, not bitter, texture of a carrot with thicker skin, mild flavor that I mild describe as slightly artichoke-y, the way that salsify roots and scorzanera are. Boil clean, gently scrubbed roots for 2-3 minutes or until just tender, cut into 1/2 inch pieces, a little melted butter and a pinch of salt and they were pretty darn good for a first shot. I'll probably try them in soup next.
Julie Weisenhorn
Creeping bell flower is becoming public enemy #1 in gardens and natural areas. It spreads by seeds and rhizomes. So managing it to prevent it from spreading beyond your yards and gardens is important. Remove stems before they set seed and keep plants in bounds by removing the rhizomes around the perimeter of the plant . I'm glad to hear it has some edibility factors because there is a lot of it around!
Alan Bergo
Yes I've seen it in large colonies. Definitely a tricky one to get rid of, but there's much worse, too. My new house has ground elder 🙁
R. P.
Ground elder is tasty, too!
Alan Bergo
Yep! I went over them a little this spring in my post on Ground Elder.
Desiree
I've eaten the roots- they are best in spring before they flower. To me, they are relatively bland- not bitter- not anything, really. They do well mixed in with other vegetables, such as in a stir-fry. I wouldn't bother, but creeping bell flower is abundant in my yard, and I'm assuming I'm getting some nutrition from the plant.
Alan Bergo
Thanks Desiree.
Shawn Scepan
We’ve got some of this in the yard too! Just read that the roots have a historical spot on a traditional Korean table. After a blanch and a sautée with simple traditional flavors (ses oil, salt, sugar, garlic) it’s slight bitterness is welcomed, even among kiddos… kind of a ginseng-y flavor. Thank you for the wealth chef.
Alan Bergo
Super cool Shawn. I haven't been able to have the roots yet, I think I need to find a larger species or get them in softer ground. Another question to ask Sam as they're supposed to be really good.
Kari Snyder
I’ve read that the tubers are edible, too. Have you tried them?
Alan Bergo
Nope. Haven't tried them. I do enjoy the greens cooked though. Just ate some last night.