Everything You Should Know About Saffron

Although the packaging is labelled as saffron, it is actually something completely different. These stigmas are from the safflower plant, and they are often used to imitate saffron in various ways. Although the stigmas smell a little bit like saffron, they don’t have the complex flavour or actual saffron. They also don’t colour food in the same way.Safflower stigmas are sometimes ground up and mixed with ground saffron to “stretch” the product. This is called adulterating saffron, and it’s one of the reasons why you shouldn’t buy pre-ground saffron. The other reason is that ground saffron doesn’t retain the same flavour as whole saffron threads, so really you should just avoid that stuff.