Papaya leaves are often avoided because of their distinctive bitter taste. Although many people are reluctant to consume them, papaya leaves are actually rich in benefits. The nutritional content in papaya leaves, such as vitamins A, C, E, and various enzymes, can help boost the immune system and speed up wound healing.
However, the bitter taste of papaya leaves cannot be considered trivial. This taste comes from the alkaloid, flavonoid, and tannin compounds contained in it. For some people, this bitter taste is very disturbing, so they prefer not to consume papaya leaves even though they know the benefits. In fact, there are several ways to reduce this bitter taste, such as boiling the leaves with salt or mixing them with other ingredients that have a stronger taste.
If you want to reduce the bitter taste drastically, you can imitate the trick of cooking papaya leaves done by Instagram user @corry.mega. Through one of the videos he uploaded, the netizen admitted that he did not only boil papaya leaves so that the bitter taste could be removed. However, there are a number of other tricks that are done.
 Instagram/@corry.mega
As reported by BrilioFood from Instagram @corry.mega on Thursday (26/9), the first thing to do is to squeeze the papaya leaves using salt. To do this, cut the papaya leaves into pieces first. After that, place them in a bowl and add enough salt. Next, squeeze the papaya leaves until the sap comes out. If it is too rough and tough, you can add a little water. Then squeeze until the papaya leaves start to wilt. After that, wash the papaya leaves in running water so that the sap falls out even more.
 Instagram/@corry.mega
Next, boil water in a pan. When it boils, add the washed papaya leaves. After that, add salt and tamarind to taste. Stir and cook until the papaya leaves are cooked.
 Instagram/@corry.mega
Now, the papaya leaves that are already soft can be drained first. To slow down the cooking process, soak the papaya leaves directly in cold water or ice water. That way, the color of the papaya leaves will remain bright green and the texture will not be soft. In addition, papaya leaves are also not bitter because they have been squeezed with salt and boiled with tamarind water which can remove the bitter sap. Since being uploaded on September 21, 2024, this video about papaya leaf cooking tricks has been watched more than 200 thousand times. It is not surprising that many netizens are interested and also provide direct responses in the comments column. Most of these netizens even provide other suggestions for cooking papaya leaves so that they are not bitter. "If I boil papaya leaves with clay added to the water... it automatically doesn't taste bitter at all," said Instagram @indriyaniarifiyanto. "I often hesitate and am not confident, if I want to process papaya leaves, it will be bitter, aka fail," said Instagram @surimeniques. "The bitterness of the cassava leaf mixture has also disappeared," wrote the Instagram account @astuty05_. "The method of processing it is almost the same as what I do, it makes you have a lot of appetite," commented the Instagram account @zebra.10645. "Boiling guava leaves doesn't taste good either," said Instagram @faizauliashaleh13.