Taro
Taro is a starchy, subtly sweet root that’s been feeding cultures around the world for thousands of years.
In a nutshell
Taro is a dense, purple-flecked starchy root with a mildly nutty, slightly sweet flavor once cooked. It’s a staple in Hawaiian, Southeast Asian, Caribbean, and West African cuisines. Always cook it fully — raw taro contains compounds that can irritate the mouth and throat.
Nutrition
≈ 16 Calories and 0g fat per tablespoon.
Taro is a notably fiber-rich starch, delivering roughly 4 grams of dietary fiber per 100 grams cooked, which supports digestive health and helps moderate blood sugar response despite its high carbohydrate content. It provides a modest but useful hit of potassium, magnesium, and vitamin E, along with vitamin B6 and small amounts of vitamin C. The carbohydrates in taro include some resistant starch alongside regular digestible starches, which contributes to a somewhat lower glycemic impact compared with white potatoes. With virtually no fat and only trace sodium, it fits comfortably into low-fat and heart-conscious diets. Nutrition per 100g via Spoonacular.
Culinary uses & pairings
Taro shines in soups, braises, and stews — it absorbs savory broths beautifully and holds its shape better than potato during long cooking. Cubed taro is classic in Hawaiian laulau, Filipino sinigang, and Caribbean callaloo. Mashed or pounded taro becomes the iconic Hawaiian staple poi, or can stand in for mashed potato with a nuttier, earthier finish. Sliced thin and fried, it makes irresistibly crispy taro chips with a slightly purple-gray hue.
In desserts and drinks, taro’s gentle sweetness makes it a favorite in many Asian and Pacific cuisines. It’s blended into taro bubble tea, folded into Chinese taro paste pastries, layered into Filipino taro ice cream, and stirred into coconut milk puddings. Taro flour and taro paste are widely used in Asian bakeries to fill steamed buns and mooncakes. Note that the vivid lavender-purple color in commercial taro products and bubble tea often comes from added colorants or blending with purple sweet potato rather than from taro itself, which has pale flesh with only subtle purple flecking. When cooking at home, boil or steam chunks until completely tender (a knife should pass through with zero resistance) before using them in any recipe.
Pairs well with
Substitutions
Buying & storage
Look for taro corms that are firm all the way around with no soft spots, mold, or shriveling — give it a gentle squeeze and it should feel rock solid. The skin should be rough and brown with visible ring markings; a clean cross-section at the cut end (if visible) should show white or pale lavender flesh with fine purple speckling. Smaller corms, sometimes labeled eddoe or baby taro, tend to be creamier and easier to peel than the large barrel-sized corms. You’ll find taro year-round at most Asian, Caribbean, and Latin grocery stores, and increasingly at well-stocked supermarkets. Frozen taro chunks are a convenient, reliable option and perform just as well in cooked dishes.
Varieties
- Large Corm Taro (Dasheen): The most common type in US markets, sold as big barrel-shaped corms. Starchy and dry-fleshed; ideal for boiling, steaming, and mashing.
- Eddoe (Small Corm Taro): Smaller, rounder corms with a creamier, more moist texture and a slightly more pronounced earthy flavor. Popular in Caribbean and West African cooking.
- Japanese Taro (Satoimo): A small, slimy-textured variety prized in Japanese cuisine for simmered dishes like nimono. The natural slipperiness mellows with cooking and is considered a desirable quality.
- Bun-Long (Hawaiian Taro): A variety specifically cultivated in Hawaii, traditionally used to make poi. It has a distinctive purple-pink flesh and is central to Native Hawaiian food culture.
Cooking with taro tonight?
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History & origin
Taro (Colocasia esculenta) is one of humanity’s oldest cultivated crops, with evidence of its cultivation stretching back over 10,000 years in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. It spread across Polynesia through the incredible seafaring migrations of the ancestors of today’s Hawaiian and Pacific Islander peoples, who carried taro corms on their canoes as a survival food. It became the spiritual and dietary cornerstone of Native Hawaiian culture — the taro plant (kalo) is literally described in Hawaiian cosmology as an older sibling of humanity. Taro also spread westward into South Asia, Africa, and eventually the Caribbean through the slave trade, embedding itself deeply in the food cultures of the African diaspora. Today it remains a staple for an estimated 500 million people worldwide.
How it’s made
Taro is grown from small corm offshoots called cormels, which are planted in either flooded paddies (the traditional Hawaiian lo’i method) or drier upland fields depending on the variety and region. Flooded cultivation echoes rice paddy farming and helps suppress weeds while producing the large, starchy corms used for poi. The plant is a perennial in tropical climates and takes roughly 7 to 12 months to reach harvest. Once the broad, elephant-ear leaves begin to yellow and die back, the corms are dug from the soil, trimmed of their fibrous roots and tops, and cured briefly to toughen the skin for storage. Raw taro contains calcium oxalate crystals that cause intense itching and irritation — always wear gloves when peeling large quantities and cook it thoroughly before eating.
Good to know
- Raw taro will make your mouth and throat itch intensely due to tiny calcium oxalate crystals — thorough cooking completely neutralizes them.
- Taro leaves are also edible and widely eaten in Pacific Island and Caribbean cuisines, but they too must be fully cooked to destroy the oxalate compounds.
- In Hawaii, the traditional staple food poi is made by steaming or baking taro corms, then pounding them with water until smooth — its consistency is described in “finger” terms (one-finger, two-finger) based on how thick it is and how many fingers you need to scoop it up.
- The vivid lavender-purple color in commercial taro bubble tea and dessert products typically comes from added food coloring or blending with purple sweet potato rather than from taro itself, which has pale flesh with only subtle purple flecking. Some taro varieties do contain anthocyanins — the same pigments found in blueberries and red cabbage — but not in high enough concentrations to produce the deep purple seen in most taro-flavored products.
- Despite looking similar to giant elephant ear ornamental plants, true taro (Colocasia esculenta) is distinct from the inedible ornamental varieties and should not be confused with them.
