12 Ways to Use Bee Balm

Bee balm is a beautiful perennial flower, but it also turns into tea, jelly, tincture, salve, and a dozen other things once you know what to do with a summer harvest. Both the flowers and the leaves are worth saving, and there’s a place for them in your kitchen and your home apothecary.

Bee balm is one of those plants that more than earns its place in the garden. It feeds the pollinators, it’s a striking cut flower, and the leaves and flowers are both edible and traditionally used in herbal medicine. Most people grow it for the hummingbirds and never realize they’re standing next to a pantry and home apothecary rolled into one.

There are two species you’re likely to run into.

Monarda didyma, or scarlet bee balm, is the bright red one you’ll see in perennial beds and pollinator gardens.

Monarda fistulosa, or wild bergamot, is the pale lavender version native across most of North America, and the one most foragers harvest from old fields and trail edges.

Both are edible, both have a long history of herbal use, and they share many of the same traditional applications. You can generally use them in the same kinds of preparations below, though the flavor and aroma can vary from plant to plant.

It’s a member of the mint family, which is exactly what you’d guess the first time you crush a leaf. The scent carries oregano, thyme, and mint all at once, and that aromatic punch is what makes it so versatile. If you grow a few pollinator-friendly medicinal herbs or like cooking with edible flowers, bee balm belongs near the top of the list.

I’m clearly not the only one who’s been won over by this plant once they realized how much it can do.

What is Bee Balm?

Bee balm is the common name for plants in the Monarda genus, a group of aromatic North American wildflowers in the mint family. The two you’ll work with most are scarlet bee balm (Monarda didyma) and wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), though all the Monarda species are fragrant and the petals pull free of the flower head in tidy little tubes that are easy to harvest.

It has a long history of use in North America. Native American tribes brewed it as a tea and used it to ease colds, congestion, and digestive complaints, and the Oswego people taught early settlers to steep the dried leaves as a tea, which is why you’ll still hear bee balm called “Oswego tea” today. If you want the full identification and harvest rundown, I’ve got a dedicated guide to identifying wild bergamot that covers look-alikes and the best time to pick.

If you don’t have a patch yet, it grows readily from seed. You can pick up Scarlet Bee Balm seed packets or Wild Bergamot seed packets online and have your own supply within a season or two. Fair warning: it spreads enthusiastically, like most things in the mint family, so give it room or a container of its own.

The leaves carry a slightly more savory, oregano-forward flavor than the petals, which is why some people prefer them for cooking and seasoning. When a recipe below calls for a specific part, I’ll say so, but for most home herbal preparations, the flowers and leaves are both useful.

Bee Balm Benefits and Medicinal Properties

Bee balm has a long history of traditional use for colds, congestion, digestive discomfort, and minor skin irritation. Much of its herbal reputation comes from its aromatic essential oils, including thymol and carvacrol, compounds that have been studied for antimicrobial activity. In home herbalism, bee balm is most often used as a warming, aromatic tea or tincture when someone is feeling stuffy, chilled, or unsettled after a heavy meal.

Herbalists also use bee balm externally in preparations for minor scrapes, stings, and rashes. Some herbal traditions describe it as a gentle, calming herb, especially as a warm tea, but I keep that in the realm of traditional home use rather than treating it like a substitute for medical care, especially with children.

As with any herbal remedy, what works on my homestead isn’t a substitute for medical advice, so check in with your doctor before adding a new herb to your routine, especially during pregnancy or nursing, when giving herbs to children, or if you’re taking prescription medication. If you like keeping a few simple plant remedies on hand, bee balm fits naturally alongside the rest of my natural remedies for cold and flu.

Culinary Uses for Bee Balm

The flavor of bee balm sits right between oregano and mint, with a floral, almost citrusy top note, and that makes it a fun ingredient to cook with. The petals are mild and pretty enough to scatter raw over food, while the leaves bring a more savory, herbal depth.

Here are six of my favorite ways to bring bee balm into the kitchen, from a simple cup of tea to a small batch of mead.

Bee Balm Tea

The individual petals pull out of the flower head easily and dry into a beautiful bright red tea, though you can use them fresh in season too. Like most herbal teas, it takes a bit longer to steep than black tea, around 15 minutes. Use 1 tablespoon of dried petals or 2 tablespoons of fresh petals per cup of water, and keep the water just below boiling since the delicate flowers scorch easily.

It’s a traditional digestive tea, often used after meals when someone feels unsettled, gassy, or a bit queasy. Plenty of readers also steep the dried leaves the old Oswego-tea way, so don’t toss them.

Bee Balm Jelly

Those aromatic petals turn into a gorgeous bee balm jelly, and it’s one of my favorite ways to use up a generous patch. It’s made as a savory herbal jelly with a splash of vinegar and only a cup or two of sugar.

It tastes herbal and a little peppery, closer to oregano and marjoram than to anything sweet, which puts it on the cheese-board side of the pantry rather than the toast-and-butter side. The red blossoms give it a deep, warm color that looks striking next to sharp cheese and cured meats.

Edible Flower for Summer Salads

For color, flavor, and a little nutrition, scatter a few bee balm petals over a summer salad. The delicate herbal flavor pairs beautifully with microgreens and a mesclun mix, though it can get lost on something sturdier like a romaine base. Sherri, one of my readers, even tosses a leafy stem straight into beef stews and roasts for depth, and yes, you can absolutely eat the leaves raw.

Bee balm is far from the only flower worth eating, so if this sparks ideas, my full guide to edible flowers has dozens more to scatter across your plate.

Bee Balm Vinegar

Quick and easy, you can steep bee balm petals into raw apple cider vinegar for a few weeks to make a fragrant herbal vinegar. Use it by the spoonful as a traditional herbal preparation, or simply whisk it into salad dressings and marinades, where it’s said to be especially good on wild game.

My full herbal vinegar guide covers the ratios and steeping times that work for any aromatic herb.

Bee Balm Mead (and Wine)

A simple bee balm tea converts beautifully into a small-batch mead in a single quart jar. Add 1 cup of honey to 3 cups of strong bee balm tea, pitch a yeast packet, and let it ferment. My quart-jar mead method walks through the whole process, and if you need convincing, here are some good reasons to make micro-batch mead.

Let it ferment with a mason jar fermentation kit until fermentation is complete, rather than bottling strictly by the calendar. For best results, use a hydrometer and bottle only once the reading is stable, or keep it still rather than sparkling unless you’re following a tested carbonation method. The same approach scales up to any blossom, which I cover in my guide to making flower wine and mead with any edible flower.

Bee Balm Baked Goods

I love the idea of baking with edible flowers, and bee balm has the same flavor compounds that make thyme so good in shortbread. It works folded into a yeasted bread, stirred into muffins, or worked into a simple herbal shortbread, where the floral, savory note adds a bit of intrigue you don’t expect from a cookie.

Mince the leaves finely or rub the dried petals between your fingers before adding them, so the flavor distributes evenly through the dough.

Cook Savory Dishes with the Leaves

The leaves are where bee balm really earns its keep in the kitchen. Thanks to those aromatic oils, they taste like a cross between oregano and thyme, and you can use them fresh or dried anywhere you’d normally reach for either one. They’re especially good with tomatoes, so much so that some foragers have taken to calling wild bergamot the “pizza plant.” I keep a jar of the dried leaves right next to my oregano and work them into tomato sauce, marinades, soups, and vinaigrettes all winter long.

Chef Alan Bergo has a few good ideas for using them in the kitchen. Bergamot salmoriglio sauce swaps wild bergamot for the oregano in a classic Sicilian blend of lemon, garlic, and olive oil, and it’s wonderful brushed over grilled fish or chicken. His oven-dried tomatoes with bergamot and ramp leaves get slow-roasted with the herb until they turn rich and concentrated, then packed in olive oil for tossing into pasta and salads or layering onto flatbread.

Dried bee balm holds its color and aroma for about a year, which carries you straight through cold and flu season. My full guide to drying herbs at home covers the temperatures and timing for both air-drying and dehydrator methods.

Medicinal and Herbal Uses for Bee Balm

This is where bee balm really shines on my homestead. Its aromatic oils make it a natural fit for the home apothecary, whether you’re preserving it in alcohol, oil, honey, or vinegar to have on hand during cold season.

These next six preparations are the ones I come back to year after year, and several have full step-by-step recipes here on the site.

Bee Balm Tincture

Since bee balm is traditionally used as a warming, aromatic herb, a tincture is a tidy way to keep it on the shelf. Fill a jar with bee balm, cover it with a neutral alcohol like vodka, and store it somewhere cool and dark for at least a month before straining. You can use the aerial parts here, flowers and leaves together.

I’ve got a full bee balm tincture recipe with exact ratios, dosing notes, and shelf-life guidance if you want to follow along step by step.

Bee Balm Oxymel

An oxymel is a blend of herbs, vinegar, and honey taken by the spoonful or used as a soothing honey-vinegar preparation, and bee balm’s aromatic nature makes it a good candidate for cold-season herbal shelves. We make an elderberry oxymel every year for the same reason, and bee balm slots right into the rotation.

Here’s my full bee balm oxymel recipe, and if you want the master method that works for any herb, start with my guide to making a herbal oxymel. Since oxymels are made with honey, don’t give them to children under 1 year old.

Bee Balm Salve

Because bee balm has a long history of topical herbal use, it makes a lovely infused-oil base for salves meant for dry skin, minor scrapes, or bug bites.

Start by making a herbal infused oil with bee balm, then thicken that oil with beeswax to set it into a salve. The basic ratio is 1 ounce of beeswax to 8 ounces of infused oil.

If you’d rather follow a tested formula, any of my herbal salve recipes will give you a base you can swap bee balm into.

Herbal Steam for Congestion

Bee balm smells wonderful, and a handful tossed into a bowl of just-boiled water makes a fragrant herbal steam for stuffy days. Many Monarda plants contain aromatic compounds such as thymol, one of the same constituents that gives thyme its sharp, clearing scent, so a towel-draped steam over the bowl puts those aromatic oils right where you can breathe them in.

Adding a few sprigs of the dried herb to a hot bath does much the same thing, with the bonus of relaxing tired muscles while you enjoy the scent.

Bee Balm Poultice

A poultice made from boiled bee balm leaves has a long history of folk use. According to the Herbal Academy, the leaves were historically wrapped in cloth and applied to sore eyes, headaches, muscle spasms, and minor wounds.

If you want the technique itself, here’s a good walkthrough on how to make a poultice with herbs.

Bee Balm Mouthwash

Used as a mouthwash, bee balm is a traditional remedy for sore throats and mouth sores, and the antimicrobial leaves were once chewed straight on battlefields for the same purpose. A strong, cooled bee balm tea makes a simple rinse, and stirring in a little bee balm tincture helps it keep longer without spoiling.

That rounds out my dozen, though readers have suggested plenty more over the years, from chewing a leaf in old-time toothache remedies to using a strong tea during cold season.

Is Bee Balm Safe to Use?

Bee balm is a gentle, food-safe herb that’s been eaten and brewed for generations, so for most people it’s a low-risk plant to work with in normal food and tea amounts. As with any new herb, start small to make sure you don’t have a sensitivity, and patch test before applying a salve or poultice to irritated or broken skin.

If you’re pregnant or nursing, on prescription medication, or treating a child, talk to your doctor or a clinical herbalist before using bee balm medicinally. Do not give honey-based oxymels to children under 1 year old. And whenever you’re foraging rather than growing your own, be sure of your identification first using a dedicated wild edible plants reference.

Bee Balm FAQs

I’d love to hear how bee balm grows and gets used in your corner of the world.

If you’re building out an herb-by-herb apothecary, these companion roundups cover three more plants worth knowing well.

More Herbs to Put to Work

30+ Ways to Use Lemon Balm

50+ Ways to Use Yarrow

15 Ways to Use Borage

And once you’ve got a bee balm harvest in hand, you can follow these herbal medicine-making guides to craft your own remedies.

Herbal Recipes & Remedies

How to Make a Herbal Healing Salve

How to Make a Herbal Tincture

How to Make a Herbal Oxymel

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