Is There a Way to Lessen the Bitterness of an Ampalaya or Bitter Gourd?

To remove its bitterness wash bitter gourd thoroughly. Then cut in half lengthwise; and scrape out the seeds with a sharp spoon or corer and discard. Cut or slice as called for in your recipe, add little salt and blanch for 3-4 minutes in boiling water. Drain the water out and you will find that some bitterness is removed.

Once you have sliced the amplaya, put some salt (a tablespoon or so) and lightly stir in the salt to the sliced veggie with your hands. When salt is mixed, rinse with water. Cooking it with eggs as omelet will be a good dish. Or simply saute in garlic, onions, meat, then put the ampalaya. Good luck!

There is a way to lessen the bitterness of an ampalaya or bitter gourd on the dishes, You put some salt on your the bitter gourd then leave that for a few minutes then squeeze it.

it depends on how much bitterness you want to remove. if you want to make it less bitter, just rub it with salt. to make it even less bitter, soak it in salt water. to remove almost all bitterness, boil it in salt water. it removes almost all bitterness. sometimes when i boil them till they turn yellow, there is no trace of bitterness. cheeres ;p

it's not that easy to remove its bitterness muelitz,but amazingly..my mum does.i tried it myself exactly how she did it but i didn't make it..i can still taste bitterness in it.anyway,she said,her secret is that,whenever she cooks bitter gourd,she see to it that she is not feeling mad or pissed off,coz she said it will affect the taste.she told me that gentleness on chopping it is the key.you also need to use really sharp knife to slice it and don't keep on mixing it while cooking.two times at most according to her..[lol]..sounds weird to me but that's what she told me...hahahaha[by the way,can't eat bitter gourd if it's not my mum who prepared it...can't seem to tolerate the bitterness,so are my siblings..lol]

deep it into the water with salt and sqweez it and if you see the water is colored green that means it lessens its bitterness

what i have learned from my parents with regards to ampalaya, to lessen its bitterness, is to mash or crumple the chopped or sliced ampalaya with salt and water. after a minute or two, rinse it once. another thing is, while cooking ampalaya, avoid frequent stirring of the food. some says ampalaya gets more bitter if stirred too much while cooking it. (red star 88 @ 1471)

when my mother cooks sauteed ampalaya she told me once not to cover it and don not stir it after putting the amplaya. while i heard my aunt saying to lessen the bitterness, soak it in water with salt. i do not know it that is effective but mom's method is..her sauteed ampalaya is one of my favorite..

what I know to lessen the bitter taste of this kind of vegetable is to add salt to it, squeeze it before you eat it raw like in a salad. I also cook it with eggs. It doesn't taste bitter if you will put water in it. sautee the onions and garlic then the ampalaya, then pour the beaten eggs with it and add a little water. Don;t keep on mixing it with your ladle. The more it tastes bitter. Good luck

Hi! Yes there is a way to get rid of the bitterness in ampalaya. Soak the ampalaya in water with lots of salt and squeeze it from time to time. That will reduce and sometimes if you really squeeze it well in salted water you can never taste its bitterness when cooked. Hope that helps. Ciao!

Try adding some brown sugar and it will help in lessening the bitterness.

yes what u can do is while cooking ur dish of bitter guard u can use more of tomatoes to reduce its bitterness n also also to taste good. one more thing what i do is i prepare bitterguard with a little different vegetables n a little nonveg i.e mutton finely grinded so that the dish tastes good n there should not be any problem while eating it. i do this coz usually i dont like bitterguard n just for the good diet i use it sometimes n remember any dish u prepare with bitterguard wheather veg or nonveg add more of tomatoes so that u like the dish n dont have it forcingly.

hi there. i used to hate this veggie until my husband cooked for me. his secret was to saute it with lots of tomato. tomato will balance the bitterness. it is also delicious to cook it with beef. but we experimented on putting chopped bits into our lumpiang shanghai. it was a success.

Personally I LOVE Ampalaya! From my experience, don't over cook it, and try not to stir it too much. My Mother believes that soaking it in salted water before cooking will also help reduce the bitter taste.

Hello,Muelitz! We eat the bitter gourd just by frying in oil and adding a little salt to it.If you can't eat because of its bitterness than you have to cut the bitter gourd in to pieces and boil with a little water for one to two minutes and drain out the water when cold.then fry it in boiled oil and eat.the bitterness will be lessened by 50%.or cut the bitter gourds in to round sized pieces and fry inoil till it dries up fully.in this process you would not get the bitterness totally.try these process and enjoy the taste.thanx.

After you sliced the Ampalaya. Pour a little warm water and some salt. Then squeeze it. And when you put it in the pan don't cover and stir it. Let it simmer and wait for it to be cooked before you stir. Good luck. HUGZ!

soak it in a boiling water for a few minutes before sauteing it..not all of the bitterness will be gone but at least it was lessened.. you can also try rolling it in a salt after it has been chopped

Bitter Melon is one of the best available natural body cleaner. It is prepared by squeezing out a little juice, stuffing it with any other vegetable or searing it then throwing in back the juice that was squeezed with some water and cooking it down to the point that it's soft and still whole and then to eat it with home made pita bread. Very good and delicious.

this is the vegetable that i really hate the most lol i will eat any kind of vegetable, but not bitter gourd! even the bitterness will be lessen, i will still not eat ampalaya hehehe..

We soak it first in water with salt to lessen the bitterness before you cook it. It's very effective.