Water Chestnuts Nutrition Facts

Are water chestnuts healthy?

Water chestnuts are nutritious because they are high in fiber, low in calories, and contain no fat. They also contain several vitamins and healthy antioxidants. Water chestnuts are an excellent source of: Vitamin B6.

What kind of vegetable is a water chestnut?

aquatic tuber vegetables

Despite being called chestnuts, water chestnuts are not nuts at all. They are aquatic tuber vegetables that grow in marshes, ponds, paddy fields and shallow lakes (1). Water chestnuts are native to Southeast Asia, Southern China, Taiwan, Australia, Africa and many islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans.

What do water chestnut taste like?

What do fresh water chestnuts taste like? That’s because real water chestnuts—the fresh kind, that is—are fantastically flavorful and downright fruity: sweet and nutty and tart all at once, like a cross between a coconut and an apple, with the texture of an Asian pear.

Is a water chestnut a potato?

Nope, water chestnuts are in fact, not at all in any way related to nuts. They’re an aquatic vegetable found in marshy regions of Southeast Asia. Known for their sweet, crisp flavor, they’ve been cultivated for centuries; ancient herbalists actually believed it could sweeten breath.

Why are water chestnuts so expensive?

Due to excess rain during harvest season, a number of our water chestnuts grew oversized, making them unsuitable for can production. In addition to the shortage, the demand for fresh water chestnuts in China has reportedly grown since the previous year, leaving very little raw material for canning.

Why are they called water chestnuts?

The name “water chestnut” comes from the fact that it resembles a chestnut in shape and coloring (it has papery brown skin over white flesh), but the water chestnut is actually not a nut at all—it is an aquatic tuber (rootlike part of a plant) that grows in freshwater marshes.

What can you substitute for water chestnuts?

The best substitutes for Water Chestnuts are – White Turnips, Canned Water Chestnuts, Jerusalem Artichokes, Jicama slices, Almond flour, Hazelnut flour, Cassava flour, Celery, Bamboo shoots, fresh Ginger, Daikon, and Radish slices.

Do water chestnuts taste like potatoes?

Although the canned version we get in the West tastes like crispy potatoes with a slight “canned” taste, when fresh they are snappy and sweet and can be used in raw as well as cooked dishes. Unlike other starchy vegetables, they maintain their texture when cooked.