24 Bitter Melon Recipes To Try With This Healthy Vegetable (2024)

Whether you’re eating it for health benefits or love the flavor, this collection of bitter melon recipes is full of amazing inspiration. From stir-fries, curries, stews, and more you’ll have no shortage of delicious ways to prepare it.

24 Bitter Melon Recipes To Try With This Healthy Vegetable (1)

Sometimes we just get stuck in a rut with how to cook our vegetables. When it comes to bitter melon, balancing that bitter flavor can sometimes take a bit of extra creativity.

But there are actually tons of ways to enjoy it! Whether you love the flavor, or just want to add the health benefits of it to your diet this list of bitter melon recipes is perfect for you.

It highlights some amazing ways that different cultures and preparation methods pair the bitterness with other ingredients to create some fantastic and creative meals to enjoy.

Choosing & Preparing Bitter Melon

I definitely recommend you to check out my guide on how to prepare and cook bitter melon if you’re interested in mastering it as an ingredient, but these quick tips can help you get any of these recipes cooked to your liking in no time.

Smaller melons tend to be less bitter than the larger sizes.
The seeds and white interior are completely edible, but also very bitter and often removed.
Blanching the melon briefly, or letting them sit in a salt coating for an hour before cooking, can also help reduce bitterness.
Utilize acid, salt, spices, and fat to balance out flavors for a well-rounded dish.

When it comes to cooking with bitter melon, it’s all about highlighting the bitterness in a way that enhances the dish. Check out the amazing ideas in the collection below and get excited to experiment!

1. Coconut Bitter Melon Curry with Tofu

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This creamy Thai-inspired curry with bitter melon and tofu combines different flavors such as bitter, tart, spicy, and sweet to create a delightful vegetarian dinner.

Recipe by: Yummy Addiction

2. Stir Fried Bitter Melon with Beef and Black Bean Sauce

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A quick and easy, traditional stir-fried Chinese bitter melon recipe made with tender beef and a homemade black bean sauce made from scratch!

Recipe by: Pups with Chopsticks

3. Vietnamese Bitter Melon Stir-Fry with Eggs

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Vietnamese Bitter Melon Stir-Fry with Eggs is a quick and tasty dish with health benefits. It requires very few ingredients and you need just one pan to cook it.

Recipe by: Delightful Plate

4. Bitter Gourd Tomato Curry

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Kakarakaya tomato curry is a delicious South Indian style dish with bitter melon. An easy to make recipe that is perfect with rice or roti!!

Recipe by: Cook’s Hideout

5. Baked Sweet & Sour Karela (Bitter Melon)

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6. Bitter Melon Stir Fry

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Bitter melon and ground pork is a classic pairing made extra tasty in this easy dish. The stir fry is seasoned with garlic, oyster sauce, fish sauce, and soy sauce, a great and crowd pleasing combination of flavors.

Recipe by: Onolicous Hawaii

7. Stir Fried Bitter Melon with Fermented Black Beans

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This quick, tasty, and healthy side dish will surprise you with its beautiful simplicity and rich flavor.

Recipe by: Omnivore’s Cookbook

8. Javanese Stir-fried Bitter Gourd

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Oseng-oseng pare is Javanese dish of bitter gourd (bitter melon) stir-fried with shallots, garlic, chillies, and shrimp paste. It’s typical of Indonesian home cooking and has numerous health benefits.

Recipe by: Cook Me Indonesian

9. Bitter Melon Peel Stir-fry with Potatoes

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This bitter melon peel stir-fry is for those of you who love bitter melon. It’s a great way to use up an ingredient that you might otherwise toss out.

Recipe by: My Heart Beets

10. Vietnamese Bitter Melon Soup (Canh Kho Qua)

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Vietnamese Bitter Melon Soup features stuffed bitter melon with pork in a clear and savory broth. This is a traditional dish of Southern Vietnamese cuisine.

Recipe by: Delightful Plate

11. Bitter Melon Stir Fry with Caramelized Shallots

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The bitter taste of bitter melon mellows out thanks to the addition of spices, shallots, and a drizzle of tangy and savory lemon yogurt.

12. Cantonese Bitter Melon Soup with Pork Bones

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Bitter Melon Soup with Pork Bones is a delicious Cantonese-style soup with simple, pure ingredients. It’s also easy to make at home!

Recipe by: The Woks of Life

13. Healthy Bitter Melon Juice

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Try this bitter melon juice which is packed with nutritional health benefits and balanced the bitterness with naturally sweet ingredients including apple and kiwi.

Recipe by: Recipe Marker

14. Bitter Melon Soup (Easy One Pot)

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Bitter melon is a superfood and this recipe is an “all-dump-in” one-pot method. You will be surprised at how well the pineapples balance out the bitterness of the melon.

Recipe by: Joyful Dumplings

15. Stir Fry Bitter Melon with Eggs and Shrimp

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Bitter melon is commonly used in Vietnamese cuisine. Eggs and shrimp stir fry bitter melon can be enjoyed alone or together with rice.

Recipe by: The Viet Dish

16. Potato and Bitter Melon Stir Fry

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Achari Karela sabzi is stir fried Karela (bitter melon) with the tangy acahari masala (pickling spices). Once you learn how to remove excess bitterness from karela it really tastes good.

Recipe by: My Tasty Curry

17. Ground Beef and Bitter Melon

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Ground beef and bitter melon (or bitter gourd) is a popular combination of Pakistani cuisine. Give this dish a try for a slightly bitter but very comforting experience!

Recipe by: Tea for Turmeric

18. Chinese Bitter Melon Salad

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When prepared appropriately, bitter melon can be savory and extremely appetizing, like this Chinese bitter melon salad recipe. You’re going to love it.

Recipe by: Light Orange Bean

19. Okinawan Bitter Melon, Tofu, and Pork Scramble

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A great bitter melon dish for bitter melon newbies. This scramble hails from Okinawa, a place known for long life and good, healthy living!

Recipe by: Viet World Kitchen

20. Karela Sabzi (Bitter Melon Vegetable)

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A classic, easy vegan recipe for karela or bitter melon, one of South Asia’s most popular summer vegetables.

Recipe by: Pakistan Eats

21. Bitter Gourd Curry- Paavakai Kozhumbu

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Tangy, spicy, sweet and sour: umami of flavors in this bitter gourd curry. Bitter gourd is also known as karela, paavakai, kakarakaya and more, is quite infamous for it’s bitterness.

Recipe by: Food Fashion Party

22. Bitter Melon Egg Frittata

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Fluffy and flavorful bitter melon and egg frittata. This recipe is a very nice introduction to prepare and enjoy bitter melon.

Recipe by: Daily Cooking Quest

23. Bitter Gourd Chips in Air Fryer

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Crispy, healthy and very easy snack made easily at home with just few ingredients.

Recipe by: Smitha Kalluraya

24. Bitter Gourd Pickle

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Pickles are a great way to extend the summer harvested vegetables and this bitter melon pickle also known as Pavakkai Urukkai is no different. A wonderful and tangy / spicy pickle made with freshly harvested bitter melon is a great side to serve with rice.

Recipe by: My Cooking Journey

24 Bitter Melon Recipes To Try With This Healthy Vegetable (2024)

FAQs

What is the healthiest way to eat bitter melon? ›

You can eat bitter melon raw or cooked or make a concentrated extract from it. The latter is the most nutritious and has the most health benefits. As is done in Asian cuisine, you can also use its unripe fruit as a vegetable and make stir-fries and many other recipes from it.

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What does bitter melon pair well with? ›

Bitter melon also pairs nicely with pork for a quick stir-fry, a main dish, or with black bean sauce. Try cooking bitter melon with dried shrimp for an umami-filled flavorful side dish.

Who should not take bitter melon? ›

Women who are breastfeeding should also not eat this fruit because some bad substances of bitter melon can be passed into breast milk. People with low blood pressure (or a history of low blood pressure): Bitter melon has the effect of lowering blood pressure thanks to its ingredients Charantin, Polypeptid-P and Vicine.

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Does bitter melon melt belly fat? ›

But that's not all. According to some research, bitter melon could also help you lose weight, and more specifically, belly fat. One study found that taking 4.8 grams of bitter melon extract each day led to significant decreases in belly fat.

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Is it better to eat bitter melon raw or cooked? ›

Known for its strong bitter taste, bitter melon is also a nutritional powerhouse that offers a wide range of health benefits. You can eat it raw, but people often cook it to take the edge off its intense bitterness.

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What does bitter melon do to your body? ›

It has been traditionally used to treat diabetes. Bitter melon contains a chemical that acts like insulin to help reduce blood sugar levels. People commonly use bitter melon for diabetes, osteoarthritis, athletic performance, and many other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence to support these uses.

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Is it safe to eat bitter melon every day? ›

When enjoyed in moderation, bitter melon can be a healthy and nutritious addition to your diet. However, consuming high amounts of bitter melon or taking bitter melon supplements may be associated with several adverse effects. In particular, bitter melon has been linked to diarrhea and abdominal pain ( 17 ).

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Can we eat eggs with bitter gourd? ›

No, eating bitter gourd and eggs together is not harmful. They can, in fact, be a healthy and nutritious combo. Bitter gourd is high in vitamins, minerals, and fibre, whereas eggs are high in protein.

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Do you need to refrigerate bitter melon? ›

Eating bitter melons

Store the fruit in the refrigerator in the crisper drawer in a paper or plastic bag for three to five days.

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Is it OK to eat bitter melon raw? ›

Unlike most melons, bitter melon has a strong, bitter taste and no sweetness. In fact, the fruit gets more bitter as it ripens. Both its green husk and its white insides are edible, and while you can eat bitter melon raw, many people prefer it cooked, because cooking tones down the bitterness.

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How to prepare bitter melon for weight loss? ›

Cut the bitter melon in half longways, scoop out the seeds and white flesh with a spoon and juice the outer green of the bitter melon. All all produce through juicer and enjoy!