Butterfly Pea Flower Extract: What Is This Strikingly Vibrant Ingredient And How Do You Use It?

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In May, 2025, the United States Food and Drug Administration announced the agency's approval of three new food coloring agents. The trio of ingredients, galdieria blue, calcium phosphate, and butterfly pea extract, were chosen as apparent natural solutions that could help the agency work towards phasing out petrochemical made dyes, like Red No. 40 and Red Dye No. 3. Now, commercial makers of foods ranging from ready-to-eat chicken products, to fruit juices, pretzels, flavored milks, and coated nuts may begin transitioning their products to include these new, approved colorings. 

One of these colorings, butterfly pea flower extract, has a long history as a food coloring ingredient, lending it centuries of anecdotal evidence as a safe way to make your food vibrant. The pea flower is a remediating plant, meaning it can fix nitrogen into gardens and make healthier soil. Harvested first by various cultures from India, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, the flowers, plus the extract you can make from them, are used to color rice or dumplings, or infuse tea. 

According to a report from the New York Times, butterfly pea flower extract has been approved to color foods since 2021, so you may have sampled it in some products already. The newest authorization increases the scope of its approval. In addition to drinks and candies, the coloring can now be used in chips, breakfast cereals, and yogurts.

Butterfly pea flower, scientifically called Clitoria ternatea, is an ornamental flower named for its appearance, rather than any attribute it might have for attracting butterflies. Its vibrant petal is only a few inches wide, with a pistil that is often green or white. The vine is native to Southeast Asia, where it's used in Thai, Malay, and Peranakan food. If left to fruit, it produces a small, flat legume pea which is edible when harvested early enough to be tender.

To harvest butterfly pea flowers, the petals are pruned from the vine. In the wild, foraged butterfly pea vines may have one to three petals per, but cultivated varieties sometimes yield a few more. Once plucked, the flowers can be dried, turned into tea, or extracted of their riotous hues and turned into a concentrated liquid.

The blue shade of butterfly pea flowers is imparted from phenolic pigments categorized as anthocyanins. These water soluble pigments give the same color (in different shades) to many of your favorite red, blue, and blackish fruits and vegetables. In butterfly pea flower, the specific compound at work is called ternatin, and it also makes the flower high in antioxidants like kaempferol. The inclusion of this studied cancer-fighting compound — among others — is why many consider butterfly pea flower to be a highly nutritious foodstuff.

Whether being used as an aromatic compound or to impart colors, butterfly pea flowers have a vivid impact on food. Fresh and dried versions of these flowers are used as garnish and time-released coloring agent, respectively, but it's the extract of the flower that is most often employed in cooking, baking, and food production. At home, the process of extracting color from butterfly pea flowers can be as straightforward as steeping them in hot water. (Essentially, you're making tea.) You can soak your flowers in various volumes of water to impact the concentration, too. Some methods call for maceration of the flower. Some might encourage the use of an alcohol solution, as is done in occasional commercial settings. Mix it with sugar, and you have a syrup. Results depend on the recipe, and they vary.

Now that butterfly pea flower extract has a greater range of approval from the FDA, it's possible you may start seeing it in processed products like snacks or cereal. Naturally, you'll want to know how it got there. As a food coloring agent, butterfly pea flower is produced on an industrial scale by mixing the flowers with various solvents like ethanol, methanol, and ethyl acetate.

Alternatively, butterfly pea flowers can be concentrated and converted through a technique called ultrasound assisted extraction, or UAE. With this method, the flowers are soaked in water at 122 degrees Fahrenheit while an ultrasonic frequency causes the polyphenols and other coloring compounds to separate. Then, they're concentrated with vacuum evaporation. Science!

Butterfly pea flower might be lush as lavender and may pop like a pile of blueberries, but it lacks both the odor and taste of either. Unfortunately, the extract isn't known for its strong flavor. In its very highest concentrations, you may get a hint of something earthy, floral, or herbaceous — but if those notes jump out with pronunciation, check to see if the product you're shopping has been artificially scented or flavored. At its best, you're looking for something as subtle as green tea.

If you have come upon a butterfly pea flower extract that's tinted pink, rather than blue or bluish purple, then you could expect the product to taste slightly acidic. Citric acid is used to change the pH of butterfly pea flower concentrate and force a pale red color instead.

Spirulina is another heavy hitter in the world of naturally derived food additives. It's been an FDA-approved food coloring since 2013, according to the New York Times. Because it presents in shades of blue and green, it naturally draws comparison to butterfly pea flower extract. The two have many differences, however. For starters, butterfly peas are in the legume family, i.e. plants. Spirulina, an algae, is in the family of blue-green spirulinaceae, which are cyanobacterium. These two extracts derive from entirely different kingdoms! The primary polyphenolic compounds that color butterfly pea extract are anthocyanins, while spirulina extract is high in pigments like phycocyanin.

Hard science aside, these extracts show up and perform differently when employed in cooking and food production. For starters, aroma is fairly absent from butterfly pea flower extract; spirulina smells more distinct, like sitting beside a healthy pond, or on the beach. (Especially pungent, fishy spirulina is likely past its prime.) The same lacking quality defines the difference in taste between either extract. Spirulina tastes like brined grass. The taste of butterfly pea flower extract is, again, conspicuously nonexistent.

Further differences can be found all the way down to how the extracts are sold and used. Unless you're making your own (and purchased dried leaves), you're more likely to find aqueous solutions of butterfly pea extract. Spirulina is most regularly packaged as a ground up powder.

When it comes down to it, spirulina is closer to another of the FDA's newly approved food coloring agents: galdieria. Galdieria is also an algae, like spirulina, but it comes from some different arms of the biological web. As a coloring extract, it yields something like a milky cornflower blue that's now approved for use in frostings, gums, cereal, ice cream, and smoothies.

Another substitute that can draw fair comparisons to butterfly pea flower extract is hibiscus. Similarities include that hibiscus and butterfly pea are both flowers, both contain anthocyanins, polyphenols, and lots of good antioxidants, both are native to Southeast Asia (though hibiscus species can be found across the globe), and both are widely used to color food.

Hibiscus flowers are dried before they're sold, and when you purchase a sack you'll find that they are much more dense and bouncy than butterfly pea flowers, which can be delicate. Soaking hibiscus flower produces a red-to-deep-purple hue, a hotter side of the color wheel than the blue-tinted-purple of butterfly pea flower extract. Hibiscus is also more fragrant and is used to give non-alcoholic drinks a tartish sour flavor.

Because butterfly pea flower is a pH indicator, you can combine the two of them to create a unique food coloring. The introduction of hibiscus flower will tinge the butterfly pea flower extract with a light red color, which has a range of uses to color baked goods and rice. Butterfly pea flower can also be used with dried hibiscus for vibrant cocktails.

Butterfly pea flower extract has a lot of potential uses in the kitchen. It's most common and easiest implementation would be to color a bowl of rice. It's as simple as adding a few drops of commercial extract or steeping dried leaves in the rice water before cooking your grains. Tea is made the same way, as is your own at-home extract or syrup, which would require you to reduce the ratio of leaves to water.

You can enliven your cocktails with butterfly pea extract in hand, using only a half-ounce or less of water-based extract or syrup. Similarly, any recipe for baked goods that calls for blue, purple, or pink food coloring is an excellent candidate for using butterfly pea flower instead. A few drops will create a lovely shade, as is done in a type of Thai cake called khanom chan. In savory uses, butterfly pea flower extract shows up in Peranakan rice dumplings called nyonya zhang.

Butterfly pea flower salt is among the more creative and simple uses you could find for dried flowers. Because it is an edible flower, you can macerate the dried leaves into small bits (or buy a powder) and mix with a type of salt that's used for finishing, like sea salt. It won't modify the flavor of the salt much, but it can make your finishing touch a little more exciting.

Fortunately, butterfly pea flowers are an easy thing to get your hands on these days, as are extracts in various forms. A quick Amazon search will yield you lists of vendors hawking liquid extracts, butterfly pea tea, dried flowers, and even vibrant powdered forms similar to the way spirulina is concentrated and sold. These days, even Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods sell some type of tea or powder for making extract.

With that in mind, it's important to remember — not all butterfly pea flowers are grown equally. If a brand is boasting big health claims, take them with a grain of salt. If your powder is exceptionally purple, make sure to check the label to see if it has been mixed with other colors. Some liquid extracts may contain sugar, natural flavorings, or other additives and preservatives, as opposed to brands like Bio Nutricia, which sell the extract in pure form.

As an intended replacement for petrochemical dyes, butterfly pea flower is naturally being touted as a far more healthful way to color foods. This is a perception that goes much further back in history than the FDA's decision to expand an already approved coloring agent. For centuries, ayurvedic medicine has utilized butterfly pea flower to treat numerous ailments, including, "indigestion, constipation, arthritis, skin diseases, liver and intestinal problems," according to the Journal of Food Science Technology. These benefits are potentially linked to and supported by the existence of the aforementioned ternatin anthocyanins among other antioxidants.

Another compound, a flavenol called kaempferol, is believed to impart beneficial nutritional traits to butterfly pea flower extract as well. According to the journal Molecules, kaempferol has exhibited strong evidence for being an anticancer agent, as well as cardio- and neuro-protective.

In terms of a more macro nutritional profile, butterfly pea flower extract varies by producer. 100 percent butterfly pea flower extract should have negligible calories, fats, carbs, proteins, or sugars.

Incredibly enough, the anthocyanin compounds that color butterfly pea flower extract are not considered too volatile, meaning they can exhibit moderate to slow rates of degradation or dissolution if extracted well and stored properly. This is actually fairly unique for anthocyanins in general, which are somewhat chaotic. For dried flowers, find a cool, dark place in your pantry, and store them in an airtight container. In this condition, they can last in peak quality for over three years. Powdered extracts should be kept the same way. Although many packages come with a plastic zip tab, it's best practice to move your extract into a ceramic or glass jar once it's opened.

For the liquid extract, most brands seem to recommend refrigerator storage after opening. This tracks with research which suggests that fluctuation in temperature can contribute to faster degradation of color compounds. Similarly, evaporation can affect whether or not those color compounds stick around, too. The inclusion of citric acid, which lightens the color of butterfly pea extract, may help preserve color for longer as well. When storing your extract in the fridge, the time it keeps may vary depending on whether or not the product includes additives.

In essence, there are not any true varieties to butterfly pea flower extract. If what you're purchasing or making isn't coming from Clitoria ternatea, then it isn't legit butterfly pea extract. That said, commercial products may come in a range of color — you may from time to time see a red, pink, or green tinted butterfly pea flower extract, and that's due to an aforementioned bit of chemistry.

Butterfly pea flower has been approved as a food coloring agent by the FDA primarily for its blue and purple shade. But when the pH of the extract is changed, either raised with a basic or lowered with an acid, the extract changes colors, too. So, if you see a greener extract that claims to be butterfly pea flower, this means something basic was added to trigger the quinoidal and chalcone compounds that induce blue and yellow. Similarly, a pink solution may have been treated with lemon juice or even hibiscus. The color will depend on the producer, which includes you as well, should you decide to make your own food coloring.