Yucca Fruit Pickles: An Appetizing Conversation Starter

Your next summer pickling adventure awaits. Yucca fruit pickles are made from the young, green seed pods of yucca plants. They just need to be soaked, peeled, and brined to become a crisply intriguing addition to your favorite pickle platter. Yuccas are strikingly structural native perennials that are relatively cold-hardy as well as drought-tolerant, a tough combination that makes them an appealing choice for low-maintenance gardens in a challenging and changing climate. They are also edible. Since it is unlikely that anyone you are feeding will have eaten yucca fruit pickles before, there will be immediate questions. And a small cloud of confusion. 

You will need answers, clarity, and a recipe. Read on!

All yuccas (and their agave cousins) share edible traits via their immature stems, flowers, and fruit. You can read a previous story about eating yucca stems and flowers here: Yucca: An Edible and Resilient Plant.

Speaking of eating, about that small cloud of confusion: Yucca versus yuca. Yucca is the botanical name for a genus of plants in the Asparagaceae family; they have spike-tipped leaves growing in a rosette, with tall, candelabra-like heads of flowers, and squat seed pods (and yes, their central stalks when immature look just like giant asparagus).

Yuca, on the other hand, is one of the common names of a different edible plant, the tropical shrub Manihot esculenta, whose imposing and starchy brown-skinned tuber is also known as cassava or manioc. It is in no way related to yucca.

In New York, where I live, the species we see commonly along sandy shorelines and in disturbed ground is Yucca filamentosa. While it is native to southeastern North America, it has escaped cultivation and has naturalized into New England and the Midwest.

After their tall stalks have bloomed effusively in early summer, the moth-pollinated yucca flowers transform gradually into gherkin-shaped seed pods. Years ago, those gherkins (South African and British English for a small, pickled cucumber) gave me ideas, which were borne out by a sweet foraging book by Billy Joe Tatum, Wild Foods Field Guide and Cookbook. A summer pickling tradition began.

Inside the green capsules are flattened seeds packed into neat, double-rowed, tripartite compartments. While those seeds are still pure white, they are tender and juicy; at this stage the entire pod can be pickled, or eaten as a cooked vegetable. The only caveat is this: Yucca pods must be peeled, since any remaining green parts are bitter. Raw, the peeled pod tastes a little like green beans meeting a slightly bitter cucumber.

Before you collect a bushelful of pods, slice a couple in half. Are the seeds juicy and white? You’re good to go. But if they are black or have begun to blacken, you’re too late. Wait for next year.

Another way to tell if the yucca fruit are too tough to pickle is to see if you can break them apart in your hands. Young pods will be very firm, but older pods will split three ways, along their their seams.

All yuccas contain saponins, a phyto-compound that many plants (like asparagus, legumes, spinach, and quinoa) use as a biological defence. They are water-soluble and heat-sensitive, and can be reduced by blanching and cooking. (If you swoosh the soaking water of the pods with your hands you’ll notice a lot of sudsy bubbles: saponins at work. The roots of several yucca species were used as soaps by Native American tribes.)

Traditional preparations involve roasting the pods slowly; I have not tried this. Instead, I peel them to expose their neat seeds, blanch them in boiling water, and then pickle the yucca pods in a vinegary brine.

Yucca Fruit Pickles

Soaking and very briefly blanching the yucca pods removes a trace of soapiness that would otherwise taint the pickles’ flavor. For the herbs, if you don’t have bayberry (native Morella pensylvanica) substitute regular bay leaf. Other wild herbs that work well in this brine include bee balm (Monarda species) and mugwort (invasively aromatic Artemisia vulgaris).

1 lb (about 4½ cups) green yucca fruit
1½ cups rice vinegar* or white wine vinegar
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
3 teaspoons salt
20 bayberry leaves

* I like Ohsawa Organic Brown Rice Vinegar

Wash the yucca fruit. Using a small, sharp knife, peel as much of their green skin off as possible. If the pods are quite uniform, you could use a potato peeler, and switch to a knife for the detailing, in their distinctive crevasses.

Return the peeled yucca pods to the bowl, fill it with fresh water to cover, and leave to soak for four hours. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil, and drop in the pods. Scoop them out after 20 seconds (any longer and you will lose their seeds). Drain the pods, and then place them in clean glass jars.

Combine the vinegar, water, sugar and salt in a bowl or measuring jug and stir well until dissolved. Pour this brine over the pods. Add the bayberry leaves or other herbs, distributing them evenly between your jars.

Screw on the lids, and store until needed. The yucca fruit pickles can be eaten after a couple of days but taste best after at least a week. Once open, refrigerate the pickles.

See also:

• Yucca: An Edible and Resilient Plant
• Gardening 101: Yuccas
• Cornichons: A Recipe for Crisp Cucumber Pickles