Rose Petals: Damask Rose, Rose Water and the Petals in Persian and Middle Eastern Cooking

It takes roughly 3,000 to 5,000 kg of rose flowers to make 1 kg of rose oil. The petals themselves are easier to come by. Dried or fresh petals of fragrant roses, above all the damask rose, Rosa × damascena, bring a sweet, perfumed floral note to Persian spice blends, Moroccan ras el hanout and Middle Eastern sweets, and they’re the raw material for rose water. Just buy petals sold for food, not sprayed roses or flowers from a florist.

At a glance

Which roses

Kew treats the damask rose as an artificial hybrid, with the formula R. gallica × R. moschata.³ Katzer describes it as a fertile hybrid of R. gallica with either R. phoenicia or R. moschata, so the second parent isn’t settled.¹ He adds that most European rose varieties descend at least partly from R. gallica, and that the “hundred-leaved” rose, R. centifolia, is the favorite in Provence.

The FDA’s list of natural extractives generally recognized as safe covers rose absolute, otto of roses, rose buds, rose flowers and rose hips from Rosa alba, R. centifolia, R. damascena and R. gallica, plus rose leaves from any Rosa species.²

Taste depends on the rose. Heirloom species taste best, and dark red varieties can taste too strong.

Flavor and aroma

The petals taste flowery, perfume-like, sweet and very pleasant. In Persian advieh, dried rose petals add a light, sweet, floral accent. Use too much and that floral note can tip over into soapy or perfumed.

The compounds

Rose oil is mostly alcohols. Katzer gives geraniol at up to 75%, citronellol and nerol at around 20% each, and long-chain hydrocarbons like nonadecane at up to 10%. A trace C13-norisoprenoid at about 0.01% has, in his words, notable influence on the quality of the oil. Another key compound, 2-phenylethanol, is lost from the oil during steam distillation and collects in the rose water instead.¹

The oil is extremely scarce. Katzer says that even at best, 100 kg of fresh flowers give only about 10 g of oil (0.01%), and it takes roughly 3,000 to 5,000 kg of flowers to make 1 kg of rose oil.¹

Origin and history

Katzer suspects the damask rose first appeared in Anatolia several millennia ago, and says growing it later spread to Greece and Rome.¹ In Persian cooking, rose petals and rose water have been used since ancient times, in both savory and sweet dishes.

Several popular history claims couldn’t be traced to any source we could open: that the Chinese first grew roses 5,000 years ago, that roses were used in ancient Egypt, that Romans crowned brides and grooms with roses or added petals to wine to prevent drunkenness, that Persians have cooked with roses for exactly 3,000 years, and that Arab conquest carried Persian rose cookery across the Middle East. We’ve left them out.

Rose water and production

Rose water is mostly made by distilling fresh flowers of Rosa × damascena, according to a 2024 review. It has a long history as a drink and flavoring in Iran and the Persian Gulf countries, the review says, though most rose water now goes into cosmetics. The review calls Qamsar in Iran the world’s main origin of rose flowers and names Fars (Maymand), Kerman, Isfahan (Kashan) and East Azerbaijan as the provinces with the most land under roses.⁴ Katzer lists Shiraz and Meshed in Iran, Isparta in Turkey and Bulgaria’s Kazanlak valley as famous production sites, and says Turkey and Iran produce far more oil.¹

We found no production statistics for culinary dried petals.

How rose petals are used

• Persian advieh. Rose petals show up in many advieh blends. Wasserman’s recipe uses 2 tablespoons of dried rose petals, and Batmanglij’s Qazvini blend goes into the wedding dish of rice, lamb, rose petals and barberries.⁵⁶ See advieh.
• Moroccan ras el hanout. Rosebud (damask rose) is among the ras el hanout ingredients usually included, all powdered. See ras el hanout.
• Turkish delight. Turkish lokum is a very sweet, rubbery confection with a strong rose fragrance.
• Rice and sweets. Rose water often gives a light floral fragrance to Arabic and Iraqi rice dishes, and many Indian sweets may carry a hint of it.
• Marzipan and tea. Rose water flavors marzipan, and roses are used to make rose-flavored black tea.

Dried petals usually get crumbled into blends or scattered over finished rice and desserts. Rose water goes into syrups, pastries and drinks. A little goes a long way.

Buying and quality

Buy petals sold for food, from a spice merchant or a Middle Eastern or Persian grocer. The NYBG library warns against eating roses that have been sprayed, and against eating flowers from florists or nurseries.⁷ Good dried petals or buds smell fragrant and haven’t faded to brown. We found no grading standard for culinary rose petals.

Storage

We found no published shelf-life figure for dried rose petals. Your nose is the test: if the petals don’t smell of rose when you crush them, they’ve faded. Keep them in an airtight container away from light and heat, like other dried herbs.

Safety and health claims

The FDA lists rose buds, flowers and absolute as generally recognized as safe for their intended use.² We found no recall or regulator warning involving culinary rose petals, and no NCCIH summary for rose.

You’ll see claims that rose petals are a meaningful source of vitamins A, C, D, E or B3, calcium or potassium, or that they carry useful amounts of antioxidants like myrcene and quercetin. We couldn’t trace any of that to composition data. Claims that rose petals treat menstrual pain, infections or bronchitis in traditional Chinese medicine couldn’t be traced either. We make no claim that rose petals treat or prevent any condition.

Substitutes and comparisons

Rose water is the closest stand-in for dried petals in sweets and drinks, though it adds liquid. See rose petal substitutes for ranked options. Related pages:

• Advieh
• Ras el hanout and ras el hanout substitutes
• Moroccan spices
• Lavender, another floral seasoning
• Saffron and cardamom, frequent partners in Persian and Indian sweets