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I've got a bunch of papaya seeds left over from a ripe fresh papaya and I'm trying to work out what I can do with them.

enter image description here

Pic from Livestrong

Researching this comes up with precisely two types of page:

  • Hundreds of dubious articles claiming miraculous health benefits (I'm skeptical, but good to know they're edible)
  • Hundreds of recipes for salad dressing, based on putting them cold in vinegar. I'm not especially interested in salad dressing, but if the vinegar does anything interesting to the seeds that could be used in other ways, that would be good to know about

What effect if any does cooking them have? Are they edible cooked? Are there any particular ways of heating them or ingredients to cook them with that bring out or modify their flavour in any notable way?

Cold, they're kinda tangy, sharp, bitter, not unlike peppercorns but more bitter and maybe slightly citrus-y. They seem to get more bitter the longer they're off the fruit - after two days in the fridge my stash became obscenely bitter, just one seed and I could still taste the bitterness 5 minutes later.

Or any other methods of preparation? Does steeping in vinegar do anything interesting? Or any other liquids? Crushing, freezing? Anything?

Community
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user56reinstatemonica8
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  • I always personally found them inedibly bitter. – Jay Jan 20 '16 at 21:04
  • They seem to get more bitter the longer they're left - the ones I took straight off the fruit were okay, quite bitter but tolerable, but after a couple of days in the fridge they're awful, I tried one just now and they all went straight in the bin – user56reinstatemonica8 Jan 20 '16 at 21:39
  • Are these the black ones from a ripe papaya, or these from an unripe one that look like styrofoam crumbles? – rackandboneman Jan 20 '16 at 22:30
  • @rackandboneman Ripe - they're black in a greyish moist casing, kinda like frog's eggs except the black part is much bigger. This is the closest pic I can find: http://img.aws.livestrongcdn.com/ls-1200x630/cme/cme_public_images/www_livestrong_com/photos.demandstudios.com/getty/article/217/26/124812552_XS.jpg – user56reinstatemonica8 Jan 20 '16 at 22:41
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    I can't answer what heat does to the seeds, but I know that the seeds can be used in cooking. I met a guy in Brazil who told me about drying and grinding the seeds to use as a spice. Apparently, the ground seeds can be used on all sorts of food, sort of like black pepper. The dried and ground seeds can also be used as a meat tenderizer. So, they have uses, but I wouldn't want to simply cook and eat a bunch of papaya seeds. – mrog Feb 08 '16 at 18:59

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Clear answer: Nothing interesting food wise. I have lived in Asia between papaya trees for 10 years, and I have never seen them used. I tried drying them, brining, in vinegar, nope. They are inedible. Just like the papaya leaves. The only use is producing more papayas,

Marc Luxen
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Wash them to remove all the orange fruit bits, then dry them thoroughly on a cookie sheet in the sun. Store as is, use by grinding to a powder that can be used like black pepper. Key ingredient in Hawaiian papaya seed dressing!

Joshua Engel
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treefrog
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    Welcome treefrog - General health and diet issues are off-topic here, so I removed that portion of your answer. If you have time, take the tour https://cooking.stackexchange.com/tour and see what this site is all about. – Debbie M. Jun 01 '17 at 15:05