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Vegetables · Root Vegetables
Water Chestnuts: Nutrition, Benefits, How to Cook & Recipes
What water chestnuts are, their nutrition raw and canned, why Chinese medicine counts them among the cooling foods, what they do for you, how to peel and cook them, and recipes to try.
Evidence-based33 sources citedUpdated November 7, 2026
The Dr. Axe Score™
Scientific Evidence
2.8/10
Lab studies of the corm and peel, two mouse studies of a peel compound and blood sugar, and texture and cooking chemistry; the human research covers the nutrients they carry, potassium, fiber and low energy density, rather than water chestnuts themselves.
Antioxidant & Anti-Inflammatory
4.2/10
Catechin gallates in the corm and fisetin, diosmetin and luteolin in the peel, which carries far more polyphenols than the white flesh; very little vitamin C and no vitamin A.
Clinical Effectiveness
5.8/10
Our judgment: a cooling food on Dr. Axe's own list, eaten for centuries for thirst and heat, and a whole-food crunch at 27 calories an ounce that holds up in stir-fries, soups and salads; fresh corms need a quick boil and a knife to prepare, and canned ones keep less of the minerals.
Nutrient Density
4.6/10
Per half cup raw (60 calories, USDA): copper 22% of the daily value, vitamin B6 12%, riboflavin 10%, manganese 9%, potassium 8% and fiber 7%, with little protein, iron or calcium.
Why this score?
Why Water Chestnuts scores 4.3 / 10
Weighting: Evidence 30% · Antioxidant & Anti-Inflammatory 25% · Clinical Effectiveness 25% · Nutrient Density 20% (2.8×0.30 + 4.2×0.25 + 5.8×0.25 + 4.6×0.20 = 0.84 + 1.05 + 1.45 + 0.92 = 4.26, shown as 4.3). How we score
A transparent, weighted index built for foods. See how it’s calculated →
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Water chestnuts at a glance
Water chestnuts are a crisp aquatic vegetable, the corm of a marsh sedge rather than a nut, and a good everyday food: half a cup of raw slices has 60 calories and 22% of the day's copper, and Chinese medicine counts them among the cooling foods eaten to clear heat and quench thirst.1234
- What they do: give you a juicy crunch for 27 calories an ounce, against 149 for potato chips, along with potassium, vitamin B6 and riboflavin when they're fresh15
- How much: half a cup a few times a week, at 60 calories raw or 35 canned16
- What to buy: firm, heavy fresh corms from the produce section of an Asian market, or canned slices packed in water
- How to use them: boil fresh ones whole for 1 to 2 minutes, peel them with a knife, and add them to hot dishes near the end of cooking so they stay crisp78
Water chestnuts are the crisp, white corms of Eleocharis dulcis, a grass-like sedge that grows in shallow water, and despite the name they aren't nuts at all: under the dark skin is juicy flesh with a crunch that holds up through cooking.9810 In Chinese medicine they're a cooling food, and I list them with cucumbers, melon, mung beans and seaweed among the foods that cool excess heat in the body.11
Chinese medicine teaches that heat builds in the body from a diet heavy in processed food and sugar, from burning the candle at both ends and from chronic stress, and as I've written, that heat often corresponds to inflammation, a driver behind just about every chronic health condition you can name.11 Rather than chasing each symptom, I want to work on what's driving it, and that work starts on your plate. Water chestnuts are about three-quarters water, mildly sweet and crisp, and a handful of them can take the place of exactly the fried, salted snacks that feed the fire.112
They've been part of Chinese food and medicine for centuries,3 and in Guangxi, in southern China, people still peel and eat them raw, press them into fresh juice, simmer them into soups for their natural sweetness and turn them into water chestnut cake.13 If you'd like a food-first plan for cooling inflammation, the free protocol below lays one out.
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In a 2026 survey of the edible underground plants of Youjiang District in Guangxi, China, water chestnuts ranked among the most culturally important, close behind garlic, onions and lotus root.13
China grows water chestnuts on about 44,000 hectares, roughly 110,000 acres.9
In Chinese, the corms go by bí qí or mǎ tí.13
What are water chestnuts?
Quick answer
Water chestnuts are the edible corms, or swollen underground stem bases, of Eleocharis dulcis, an aquatic sedge native to Asia that also grows in tropical Africa and Australia.9 Despite the name, they aren't nuts, and you can buy them fresh in their dark, papery skins or peeled and sliced in cans.16
The plant itself looks like a clump of slender, grass-like stems standing in shallow water, and the part you eat forms below, in the mud, as a small, round corm. Under its brown skin, the flesh is white, juicy and mildly sweet, and it stays crisp after cooking in a way few vegetables do.98 That crunch is why water chestnuts turn up in so many Chinese dishes, from stir-fries beside bamboo shoots to soups and fillings, and why cooks in southern China use them in desserts as well as savory food.13
Two other foods share the name, which can make shopping confusing. Sweet chestnuts are the tree nuts you roast in the shell, and water caltrop (Trapa) is a floating water plant whose seed is sold in India as singhara.14 Neither one is related to the Chinese water chestnut on this page, which belongs to the sedge family, Cyperaceae.9
You'll find water chestnuts two ways. Fresh ones come with their skins on and need peeling, and canned ones come peeled, sliced or whole, and already heat-processed in the can.15 Fresh corms carry more of the minerals, and canned ones are a convenient, minimally processed pantry vegetable, so both have a place in your kitchen.16
Are water chestnuts good for you?
Quick answer
Yes. Water chestnuts are a crisp, low-calorie whole food: half a cup of raw slices has 60 calories, 22% of the daily value for copper, 12% for vitamin B6 and 362 milligrams of potassium, and Chinese medicine counts them among the sweet, cold foods eaten to clear heat and quench thirst.1234
Water chestnuts work on several parts of your body at once. Their water and cooling nature serve your body's fluids and its balance of heat, their potassium supports healthy blood pressure, their low calorie count and crunch help with fullness and weight, and the compounds in their skin are being studied for blood sugar and antioxidant activity.1416171819 None of that requires much of you: half a cup a few times a week, cooked into a stir-fry or soup or tossed into a salad, is a practical everyday amount. Their crunch comes from the way their cells hold together, which makes them an easy swap for the fried, salted snacks that keep inflammation going.1012
Water chestnut nutrition facts (raw and canned)
Quick answer
Half a cup of sliced raw water chestnuts (62 grams) has 60 calories, 14.8 grams of carbohydrate, 1.9 grams of fiber, 0.9 grams of protein and almost no fat, with 22% of the daily value for copper, 12% for vitamin B6, 10% for riboflavin and 362 milligrams of potassium.12 Half a cup of canned slices (70 grams) has 35 calories, 8.6 grams of carbohydrate and 6 milligrams of sodium.6
Figures come from USDA FoodData Central records 170066 (raw) and 170067 (canned, solids and liquids), scaled to USDA's half-cup portions of 62 grams raw and 70 grams canned, with % Daily Value against FDA adult reference values.162
| Nutrient | Raw, ½ cup slices (62 g) | Canned, ½ cup slices (70 g) | Raw, per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 60 | 35 | 97 |
| Water | 45.6 g | 60.5 g | 73.5 g |
| Carbohydrate | 14.8 g | 8.6 g | 23.9 g |
| Fiber | 1.9 g (7% DV) | 1.8 g (6% DV) | 3.0 g (11% DV) |
| Net carbs | 13.0 g | 6.9 g | 20.9 g |
| Total sugars | 3.0 g | 1.7 g | 4.8 g |
| Protein | 0.9 g | 0.6 g | 1.4 g |
| Fat | 0.1 g | 0.04 g | 0.1 g |
| Copper | 0.20 mg (22% DV) | 0.07 mg (8% DV) | 0.326 mg (36% DV) |
| Vitamin B6 | 0.20 mg (12% DV) | 0.11 mg (7% DV) | 0.328 mg (19% DV) |
| Riboflavin | 0.12 mg (10% DV) | 0.02 mg (1% DV) | 0.2 mg (15% DV) |
| Manganese | 0.21 mg (9% DV) | 0.11 mg (5% DV) | 0.331 mg (14% DV) |
| Potassium | 362 mg (8% DV) | 83 mg (2% DV) | 584 mg (12% DV) |
| Thiamin | 0.09 mg (7% DV) | 0.01 mg (1% DV) | 0.14 mg (12% DV) |
| Pantothenic acid | 0.30 mg (6% DV) | 0.15 mg (3% DV) | 0.479 mg (10% DV) |
| Vitamin E | 0.7 mg (5% DV) | 0.4 mg (2% DV) | 1.2 mg (8% DV) |
| Sodium | 9 mg | 6 mg | 14 mg |
Copper is the standout, with 36% of the daily value in a hundred grams of raw water chestnuts, and they add a good measure of vitamin B6, riboflavin and manganese too.12
Half a cup of raw water chestnuts: what it gives you
If you mostly cook from a can, the numbers shift a little. USDA's canned record includes the packing water, so 100 grams hold 86.4 grams of water and 50 calories, against 73.5 grams and 97 calories raw.61 That makes a half cup of canned slices lighter still, at 35 calories, though it also carries less of the minerals, about a third of the copper of fresh ones, at 0.1 milligrams per 100 grams against 0.326.61 Water chestnuts bring little protein, iron or calcium and no vitamin A, so serve them the way they're usually eaten, with chicken, fish or eggs and colorful vegetables in the same pan.1
How water chestnuts work in your body
A water chestnut is mostly water and starch held in a tight lattice of cells, and that structure explains a lot of what it does for you. The cell walls are stitched together by cross-links of ferulic acid, a plant antioxidant, and those links hold the cells to each other through heat, which is why a water chestnut stays crunchy in a hot wok when a slice of potato would go soft.10 In a lab test, a trained tasting panel's crispness score for peeled water chestnuts went from 8.3 to 6.4 out of 10 after 30 minutes of steaming, which still falls in the grade the panel defined as crisp and juicy.8
Because a corm is about three-quarters water, it fills your plate and your stomach for few calories,1 and its potassium travels on to your heart and blood vessels, where getting more potassium helped lower blood pressure in people with hypertension.16 Its most interesting compounds sit in and near the dark skin, where labs have found most of its antioxidants, and Chinese medicine adds its own description of what the corm does, cooling heat and quenching thirst.93 From your plate to the rest of your body, it looks like this:
1Crisp cells that hold together
Ferulic acid cross-links bond the cell walls, so the corm keeps its crunch through cooking.108
2Mostly water, few calories
Raw water chestnuts are about three-quarters water, with 97 calories in 100 grams.1
3Less fuel for inflammation
Swapped in for chips and other fried snacks, they replace foods the Anti-Inflammatory Reset cuts because those foods feed the fire.12
4Potassium for your blood vessels
Half a cup of raw slices brings 362 milligrams of potassium, the mineral that lowered blood pressure in trials of people with hypertension, plus 22% of the day's copper.1216
Water chestnut benefits: what they do for you
Quick answer
Water chestnuts cool heat and quench thirst in Chinese medicine, fill you up for few calories, bring potassium for healthy blood pressure, and carry antioxidants and a blood-sugar-friendly compound, concentrated in the skin, that lab and mouse studies have measured.3417161819
Where the research stands
Water chestnuts have centuries of use in Chinese medicine, nutrients measured by USDA, lab and mouse studies of the corm and its skin, and research in people on the nutrients they carry: potassium, fiber and a low energy density.319191617
Their benefits start with the oldest use, cooling heat, and run through to what labs are now finding in the skin:
1
Cools heat and quenches thirst
Traditional useTraditional useChinese materia medica · ethnobotanical survey of medicinal food plants in the Gaoligongshan Biosphere Reserve, Yunnan · Dr. Axe's cooling-foods listIn Chinese medicine, water chestnuts are a food for heat and thirst. The classical materia medica class them as sweet and cold, among the remedies that nourish yin, the cooling, moistening side of the body's balance,3 and in the Gaoligongshan Biosphere Reserve in Yunnan, people still boil them or eat them fresh, and brew them into a medicinal decoction, to quench thirst and relieve fever.4 That cooling, thirst-quenching nature is why they're on my list of cooling foods.11
They bring the water to do the job, too: raw water chestnuts are 73.5% water by weight, so they add to the fluid you get from hydrating foods like cucumber and melon.1 On a hot day, a bowl of blanched, chilled slices tossed with cucumber and lime is the simplest way to put that cooling to work.
Study takeaway: Chinese medicine classes water chestnuts as sweet and cold, and they're still eaten to quench thirst and relieve fever.
2
Fills you up for few calories
Emerging evidenceHuman studyPooled analysis of 13 studies of 3,628 adults with obesity (low-energy-density foods) · 24 lean women who each tried three lunch starters on separate days · Lancet reviews of 185 cohort studies and 58 trials (fiber)A crisp handful of water chestnuts gives you the crunch you'd otherwise get from chips, for a fraction of the calories. An ounce (28 grams) of raw water chestnuts has 27 calories and about 4 milligrams of sodium, while an ounce of salted potato chips has 149 calories, 9.5 grams of fat and 148 milligrams of sodium.15 Fried food and ultra-processed snacks are on the cut list in my Anti-Inflammatory Reset,12 and water chestnuts slip easily into their place in a salad, a lettuce wrap or a snack bowl.
Foods like this, with plenty of water and few calories in each bite, are what researchers call low-energy-density foods, and they help you feel full on less. In a pooled analysis of 13 studies of 3,628 adults with obesity, eating low-energy-density foods went with a modest 0.53-kilogram (about 1.2-pound) drop in body weight.17 The water seems to count most when it's part of the food: when 24 lean women each tried three lunch starters on separate days, a chicken-rice soup cut what they ate at lunch by about 100 calories compared with the same ingredients served as a casserole, with or without a glass of water, and they didn't make it up at dinner.21 Those studies looked at energy density, not water chestnuts, but a corm that's three-quarters water works on the same principle, the idea behind the Volumetrics diet.
Their fiber helps as well. In a Lancet series of reviews covering 185 cohort studies and 58 trials, people who ate the most fiber had 15% to 30% lower death rates from any cause and from heart disease, and less stroke, type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer, than those who ate the least, with the most benefit at 25 to 29 grams a day,22 and half a cup of raw water chestnuts adds 1.9 grams toward that.1 Your gut bacteria break down the fiber you can't digest yourself and make B vitamins along the way, and after taking care of tens of thousands of patients in my clinic and online, I can tell you the single most overlooked organ in our health is the gut microbiome.33
Study takeaway: An ounce of raw water chestnuts has 27 calories, against 149 for potato chips.
An ounce of crunch: water chestnuts vs. potato chips
3
Potassium for healthy blood pressure
Emerging evidenceHuman studyReview commissioned by the World Health Organization: 21 randomized trials of potassium and blood pressure, 16 of them in 818 people with hypertension, and 9 cohort studies of strokeFresh water chestnuts are an easy way to add potassium to your plate: half a cup of raw slices brings 362 milligrams, 8% of the daily value, for 60 calories,12 and that potassium matters for your blood pressure. A review commissioned by the World Health Organization pooled the research on potassium from all sources, and across 21 randomized trials, getting more of it lowered systolic blood pressure by 3.49 points and diastolic by 1.96. That effect came from people with high blood pressure: in 16 trials of 818 people with hypertension, systolic pressure fell 5.32 points, while in people without high blood pressure it didn't change. In the same review's cohort studies, the links with heart disease and total cardiovascular disease weren't significant, but across nine studies of stroke, higher potassium intake went with a 24% lower risk of stroke.16
Fresh corms carry far more of it than canned ones, 584 milligrams per 100 grams against 118, about five times as much.16 So when blood pressure is part of your reason for eating them, buy them fresh, and build the rest of the meal from our list of potassium-rich foods.
Study takeaway: Half a cup of raw slices has 362 mg of potassium, and in 16 trials of people with hypertension, more potassium lowered systolic pressure by 5.32 points.
Fresh water chestnuts carry about five times the potassium of canned
4
Antioxidant support
PreclinicalIn vitro (lab)Lab analyses of a water chestnut phenolic extract, peel flavonoids and five cooking methodsWater chestnuts carry polyphenols, plant compounds that act as antioxidants, and the richest supply sits in and near the dark skin. In lab tests, a phenolic extract of water chestnut neutralized three kinds of free radicals more strongly than vitamin C did, and its main antioxidants turned out to be catechin gallates, close relatives of the catechins in green tea.18 A review of the corm's chemistry found the peel far richer in phenolics than the white flesh,9 and flavonoids from the peel, led by fisetin, diosmetin and luteolin, scavenged free radicals and slowed lung cancer cells in the lab.23
Cooking changes that chemistry, too: in a lab comparison of five ways of preparing fresh corms, the ones steamed or boiled whole in their skins showed a fuller set of flavonoids than peeled or fresh-cut ones.20
Study takeaway: The peel holds far more of the corm's polyphenols than the white flesh.
5
Blood sugar support
PreclinicalAnimal studySurvey of 54 Chinese materia medica monographs on xiao ke · two lab and mouse studies of daucosterol from the peelChinese medicine has long used water chestnuts for xiao ke, the classical wasting-thirst disorder that corresponds to diabetes. A survey of 54 Chinese materia medica monographs for xiao ke remedies lists them among the sweet, cold herbs that nourish yin, and among the ancient diabetes herbs that modern research had yet to test for blood sugar,3 and the first lab studies have now begun to look. Daucosterol, a plant sterol compound from the peel, slowed the two digestive enzymes that break starch and sugars down into glucose, and when mice took it with a dose of maltose or starch, their blood sugar rose less after the meal.1924
On your plate, half a cup of raw slices has 14.8 grams of carbohydrate with 1.9 grams of fiber, canned slices have 8.6 grams, and the American Diabetes Association lists water chestnuts among its non-starchy vegetables.1625 Eat them the way a stir-fry already serves them, beside chicken, fish or eggs and plenty of greens.
Study takeaway: Chinese medicine has used water chestnuts for wasting-thirst, and the American Diabetes Association lists them among its non-starchy vegetables.
Water chestnuts in Chinese medicine
In Chinese medicine, water chestnuts sit firmly on the cold side of the menu, and that classing shapes how and when you eat them: you eat more of the cooling foods when your body runs hot and lean on the warming ones when it runs cold.311
Traditional Chinese nutrition categorizes foods as hot or cold, based not only on their temperature but also on the way they affect the body, and uses them to balance the body's internal system.Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNSFrom Ancient Remedies (2021), p. 44
Here's how the tradition describes the water chestnut, from the materia medica and from the people who still use it as medicine today:341326
Traditional Energetic Profile
Taste
Sweet
Classed sweet in the Chinese materia medica
Temperature
Cold
One of the cooling foods
Actions
Clears heat, nourishes fluids
Grouped with the remedies that nourish yin
Traditional uses
Thirst, fever, wasting-thirst
Eaten fresh or boiled, or brewed as a decoction
How it's eaten
Raw after peeling, juiced, in soups
Also stir-fried and made into water chestnut cake
Pairing
Warming foods
Cooked warm with ginger in cold weather
The season matters too, because cooling foods suit the hot months best, and in the middle of winter I tell people to eat fewer of them or to eat them warm.26 For water chestnuts, that means slicing them into a hot soup or a stir-fry with ginger, one of the warming spices of traditional Chinese medicine, rather than eating a cold bowl of them straight from the can.11 The soup recipe below is built for exactly this time of year.
How to buy and store water chestnuts
When I taught shopping classes with my patients, I sent them around the outer edge of the store, where the produce and the meat are, and told them that's where almost all their time should go.27 Fresh water chestnuts belong to that part of the store, usually in the produce section of an Asian market. Choose corms that feel firm and heavy for their size, with smooth, tight skins and no soft, wrinkled or moldy spots, since a soft corm has lost the crunch you're buying it for.
Canned water chestnuts, sliced or whole, sit in the middle aisles, and they're a fine everyday choice: look for a can that lists water chestnuts and water, rinse them, and use them the same way. As for organic, water chestnuts come out of their skins before you eat them, which puts them in the group where buying organic matters less, and meat and dairy are the first foods I'd buy organic.28
If something has a peel on it, it's not as important to buy organic.Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNSFrom How to Reverse 'Irreversible' Diseases (Cancer, Autoimmune & Chronic Illness), The Dr. Josh Axe Show (2025), at 17:26
Keep fresh water chestnuts unpeeled, dry and cold in the refrigerator, and peel them close to the time you cook them, since cut corms tend to brown.9 Store leftover canned water chestnuts covered in fresh water in a glass container in the refrigerator.
How to peel and cook water chestnuts
Quick answer
To prepare fresh water chestnuts, scrub them, drop them whole into boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes, drain and cool them, then trim the top and bottom and pare off the skin with a small knife.7 Canned water chestnuts only need a rinse, and either kind goes into a hot dish in the last minute or two of cooking so it stays crisp.8
Start by scrubbing fresh corms under running water, then give them a soak in water with baking soda for 1 to 2 minutes, the way I recommend washing all your produce.29 Next, boil them whole, in their skins, for 1 to 2 minutes. Boiling is a traditional way to prepare them,4 and it's also the step parasitologists advise to make fresh corms safe to eat, as the safety section below explains.7 Once they're cool enough to handle, slice off the flat top and the bottom with a paring knife and work around the sides to remove the skin. Fresh water chestnuts are then ready to eat as they are, or to cook.
The cooking itself is quick, because the crunch holds and the flavor is mild. If your goal is to cool heat in the body, I point people toward boiled, steamed and raw foods more than baked, deep-fried, roasted or barbecued ones,11 so lean on boiling, steaming and quick stir-fries, and save roasting for now and then:
- Stir-fry them. Add sliced water chestnuts in the last minute or two, with ginger, garlic and greens, so they warm through and stay crisp.
- Simmer them in soup. Slice them into chicken bone broth for the last few minutes, where they add a gentle sweetness.13
- Steam them. Set them in a steamer basket with fish or vegetables; they keep most of their crunch even after a long steam.8
- Chop them into fillings. Dice them finely into chicken or turkey fillings, patties and meatballs for a juicy crunch in every bite.
- Grate them. Grate them into curries, salads and casseroles.
- Roast them now and then. Toss blanched, peeled corms in a little avocado oil and roast them on a sheet pan until golden at the edges.
If you can't find water chestnuts, diced jicama gives a salad or slaw a similar crisp, juicy bite. Water chestnut flour, a fine starch made from the corms, is the base of water chestnut cake, a traditional dessert in southern China.13
How to use water chestnuts
Once you have a can in the pantry or a bag of fresh corms in the refrigerator, water chestnuts fit almost anywhere you'd like some crunch:
Stir-fries. Toss them in at the end with bok choy, snow peas, ginger and garlic.
Soups. Slice them into chicken bone broth with ginger, shiitake mushrooms and scallions.
Salads and slaws. Mix blanched slices with cucumber, tomato, herbs and lime.
Lettuce wraps and fillings. Chop them into chicken or turkey fillings for crunch.
Water chestnut cake. Set water chestnut flour and chopped corms into a soft steamed cake, sweetened with raw honey.
A snack bowl. Serve chilled, blanched slices with a squeeze of lime and a pinch of sea salt.
Water chestnut recipes
These recipes build on pasture-raised chicken and turkey, wild fish and plenty of vegetables, with coconut aminos, ginger and toasted sesame oil for flavor and raw honey wherever a little sweetness helps. Each one calls for fresh water chestnuts, blanched and peeled, or canned slices, rinsed.
Ginger chicken and water chestnut lettuce wraps
A light, crunchy dinner that comes together in one skillet, with mushrooms and water chestnuts chopped small so every bite has both.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil
- 1 pound ground pasture-raised chicken or turkey
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
- 4 ounces shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
- 1 cup water chestnuts, chopped
- 3 tablespoons coconut aminos
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 3 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1 head butter lettuce, leaves separated
- 1 lime, cut into wedges
Instructions
- Heat the avocado oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and cook the chicken, breaking it up, for 5 to 6 minutes, until it reaches 165°F inside.
- Add the garlic, ginger and mushrooms and cook for 3 minutes, until the mushrooms soften.
- Stir in the water chestnuts, coconut aminos and sesame oil and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, just until hot, so the water chestnuts stay crisp.
- Stir in the scallions, spoon the filling into the lettuce leaves and serve with lime wedges.
Stir-fried water chestnuts with snow peas and bok choy
A quick side dish that shows off the crunch, finished with sesame and coconut aminos.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil
- 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
- 4 heads baby bok choy, quartered
- 2 cups snow peas, trimmed
- 1 cup sliced water chestnuts
- 2 tablespoons coconut aminos
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon sesame seeds
- Pinch of sea salt
Instructions
- Heat the avocado oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat, then add the garlic and ginger and stir for 30 seconds.
- Add the bok choy and stir-fry for 2 minutes, then add the snow peas and stir-fry for 1 to 2 minutes more, until bright green.
- Add the water chestnuts and coconut aminos and toss for 1 minute, just to heat them through.
- Take the pan off the heat, drizzle with the sesame oil, and finish with the sesame seeds and sea salt.
Chicken bone broth soup with water chestnuts and ginger
A warming winter soup, the way Chinese medicine likes a cooling food served in cold weather: hot, with ginger.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 cups chicken bone broth
- 1 two-inch piece fresh ginger, thinly sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, smashed
- 1 pound boneless pasture-raised chicken thighs, thinly sliced
- 1 cup sliced shiitake mushrooms
- 1 cup sliced water chestnuts
- 2 cups chopped bok choy or spinach
- 2 tablespoons coconut aminos
- 3 scallions, thinly sliced
- Sea salt and white pepper to taste
Instructions
- Bring the broth, ginger and garlic to a simmer in a large pot and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
- Add the chicken and simmer for 6 to 8 minutes, until it reaches 165°F inside, then add the mushrooms and simmer for 3 minutes more.
- Add the water chestnuts and greens and simmer for 2 minutes, until the greens wilt.
- Season with the coconut aminos, sea salt and white pepper, top with the scallions and serve hot.
Cucumber, tomato and water chestnut salad with lime and sesame
A cool, crunchy summer salad with a little heat from fresh chili, best on a hot day.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 English cucumber, halved lengthwise and sliced
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 cup sliced water chestnuts
- 2 scallions, thinly sliced
- ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 small red chili, thinly sliced (optional)
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1 tablespoon coconut aminos
- 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon raw honey
- 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
- Pinch of sea salt
Instructions
- Whisk the lime juice, coconut aminos, sesame oil, raw honey and sea salt in a large bowl.
- Add the cucumber, tomatoes, water chestnuts, scallions, cilantro and chili and toss to coat.
- Top with the sesame seeds and serve within an hour, while the vegetables are crisp.
More ways to cook with water chestnuts
- Chicken and water chestnut patties. Mix ground chicken with chopped water chestnuts, scallions, ginger and an egg, shape into small patties and pan-fry them in avocado oil until they reach 165°F in the center.
- Mushroom and water chestnut lettuce wraps. For a meatless version of the wraps above, double the mushrooms and add diced carrots.
- Green beans with water chestnuts and ginger. Sauté green beans with ginger and garlic and toss in sliced water chestnuts at the end; our green bean recipes have more ideas.
- Cashew chicken lettuce wraps. Our cashew chicken lettuce wraps already include water chestnuts.
- Salmon stir-fry. Add sliced water chestnuts in the last minute of our salmon stir-fry.
- Turkey stir-fry. Slice turkey breast thin and stir-fry it with peppers, water chestnuts, ginger and coconut aminos.
- Thai basil chicken. Stir-fry chicken with basil, chili, garlic and water chestnuts, and find more stir-fry ideas in our roundup of keto chicken recipes.
- Water chestnut cake. Whisk water chestnut flour with water, stir in chopped water chestnuts, sweeten it with raw honey in place of sugar, and steam it until set.
Are water chestnuts safe? Side effects and who should be careful
Water chestnuts are a safe everyday food for most people, and fresh ones need one extra step in the kitchen.
Fresh water chestnuts and a parasite. In parts of Asia and the Indian subcontinent, the larvae of the giant intestinal fluke, Fasciolopsis buski, settle as cysts on water plants, water chestnuts among them, and people pick them up by eating the plants raw or by peeling them with their teeth.3031 Most infections are light and cause no symptoms, while heavy ones can bring diarrhea and abdominal pain.31 Chinese parasitologists who studied the fluke advise boiling water chestnuts for 1 to 2 minutes to kill the cysts,7 so scrub fresh corms, boil them whole before you peel or eat them, and peel them with a knife, never your teeth. Canned water chestnuts have already been heat-processed.15
Allergy. Allergic reactions to water chestnuts are uncommon. Stop eating them at any itching or swelling in your mouth, and treat swelling of the throat or trouble breathing as an emergency: call 911. Our guide to food allergy symptoms lists the warning signs.
Canned water chestnuts. USDA's record for canned water chestnuts lists just 8 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams, less than the raw record's 14; the packing liquid can differ from brand to brand, so read the label and rinse the slices before you use them.61
Interaction check: Low. None is documented at food amounts.
The bottom line
Should you eat water chestnuts?
Yes. Water chestnuts are crisp, watery corms that Chinese medicine counts among its cooling foods, eaten for centuries to clear heat and quench thirst, and they bring you copper, vitamin B6 and potassium with a crunch that costs 27 calories an ounce. In my Anti-Inflammatory Reset, the idea is to remove the fuel, cool the fire and let your body heal, and a cooling vegetable that takes the place of fried snacks fits the first two steps.12
Buy them fresh when you can and canned when you can't, boil fresh ones whole before you peel them, and add them at the end of cooking so they stay crisp. This winter, simmer them in bone broth with ginger, and when summer comes, chill them and toss them with cucumber and lime.
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Open the free protocol →Water chestnuts: frequently asked questions
Are water chestnuts nuts?
No. Water chestnuts are the corms, or swollen underground stem bases, of Eleocharis dulcis, an aquatic sedge in the family Cyperaceae, and they aren't related to sweet chestnuts, which grow on trees.9 In the kitchen and in botany alike, they're a vegetable.
Are water chestnuts a vegetable?
Yes. Water chestnuts are an aquatic vegetable, the edible corm of a water plant.9 USDA's food-pattern modeling places them in the starchy vegetable subgroup, while the American Diabetes Association lists them among its non-starchy vegetables, and half a cup of raw slices has 14.8 grams of carbohydrate.32251
How many carbs are in water chestnuts?
Half a cup of raw water chestnut slices (62 grams) has 14.8 grams of carbohydrate, 1.9 grams of fiber and about 13 grams of net carbs, and half a cup of canned slices (70 grams) has 8.6 grams of carbohydrate, 1.8 grams of fiber and 6.9 grams of net carbs.16 On a keto diet, canned slices are the easier fit: four canned water chestnuts (28 grams) have about 2.7 grams of net carbs, enough to add crunch to a salad or stir-fry.6
Can you eat water chestnuts raw?
Yes, with one quick step for fresh ones: canned water chestnuts are already heat-processed and ready to eat, and fresh corms, which people in southern China peel and eat raw or press into juice, should first get a 1- to 2-minute boil in their skins.15137 Then peel them with a knife rather than your teeth, because in parts of Asia the cysts of the giant intestinal fluke can cling to water plants, and a quick boil is the step parasitologists advise to kill them.730
Are canned water chestnuts healthy?
Yes. Canned water chestnuts are a simple pantry vegetable: half a cup of canned slices has 35 calories, 8.6 grams of carbohydrate and 6 milligrams of sodium, according to USDA.6 Fresh ones carry more of the minerals, about five times the potassium and three times the copper per 100 grams, so buy fresh when you can and rinse canned slices before you use them.16
Do water chestnuts have any nutritional value?
Yes. Half a cup of raw water chestnut slices gives you 22% of the daily value for copper, 12% for vitamin B6, 10% for riboflavin, 9% for manganese and 362 milligrams of potassium, along with 1.9 grams of fiber, for 60 calories.12 They're low in protein, iron and calcium, so they work best alongside chicken, fish or eggs.
How many calories are in water chestnuts?
Are water chestnuts good for weight loss?
They can help, because they give you a lot of crunch for few calories: an ounce of raw water chestnuts has 27 calories, against 149 for an ounce of salted potato chips.15 In a pooled analysis of 13 studies of low-energy-density foods in 3,628 adults with obesity, eating more of them went with a modest 0.53-kilogram (about 1.2-pound) drop in body weight.17
Are water chestnuts good for diabetics?
Yes: the American Diabetes Association lists water chestnuts among its non-starchy vegetables, and half a cup of raw slices has 14.8 grams of carbohydrate with 1.9 grams of fiber.251 Chinese medicine has used them for xiao ke, the wasting-thirst disorder that corresponds to diabetes, and in two lab and mouse studies, daucosterol from the peel slowed the enzymes that digest starch and sugars and, in mice, blunted the rise in blood sugar after a meal.31924 Pair them with protein and greens.
What do water chestnuts taste like?
Fresh water chestnuts taste mildly sweet and juicy, with a crisp, snappy crunch, and cooks in southern China add them to stir-fries, soups and desserts for their natural sweetness.13 The crunch holds through cooking: in a lab test, a trained tasting panel still rated peeled water chestnuts crisp and juicy after 30 minutes of steaming.8
Is water caltrop the same as water chestnut?
No. Water caltrop (Trapa) is a floating water plant in a different family, and its seed, sold in India as singhara, is the water chestnut of Indian cooking and Ayurveda.14 The Chinese water chestnut on this page is the corm of Eleocharis dulcis, a sedge, so the Ayurvedic uses often attached to the name belong to water caltrop.914
How do you store fresh water chestnuts?
Keep fresh water chestnuts unpeeled, dry and cold in the refrigerator, and peel them shortly before you cook them, since cut corms tend to brown.9 Choose firm, heavy corms with no soft or wrinkled spots, and store leftover canned slices covered in fresh water in the refrigerator.
How do you peel water chestnuts?
Freshness & update log
November 7, 2026 — Rewrote the page in full under Dr. Axe's byline, around what water chestnuts do in your body and their place among the cooling foods of Chinese medicine. The previous version, "Water Chestnuts Can Enhance Weight Management, Immunity & Digestion" (2023), credited water chestnuts with Ayurvedic uses (calming pitta, diuretic, clotting, libido and bones) and cited a heart-health review that both belong to water caltrop, a different plant, so those are gone, and one FAQ answer now explains the difference. Its anti-cancer card rested on studies of pure ferulic acid in cancer cells; we searched Dr. Axe's protocols, books and shows, the traditional sources and the research, and kept only a lab finding on flavonoids from water chestnut peel inside the antioxidant benefit. Its blood pressure, hemorrhoid, diarrhea and liver uses in Chinese medicine came from compilations without a primary source, so the Chinese medicine section now rests on the materia medica and present-day ethnobotany: sweet and cold, eaten for thirst, fever and wasting-thirst. The daily values are updated to current FDA values (copper is the standout, not manganese), the line that fresh water chestnuts can be "peeled and enjoyed as is" now comes with the boil-first step, the promise that people with tree-nut allergies can eat them safely is gone, and the five outside recipe links are replaced with recipes on the page. This version keeps and builds on what held up: the nutrition facts, now raw and canned; the weight, antioxidant, heart and fiber benefits at the level of their evidence; the ferulic-acid crunch; the cooking methods; and the recipes, with chicken, turkey and wild fish, coconut aminos and raw honey. It adds Dr. Axe's cooling-foods frame, a Dr. Axe Score (4.3), three charts, a step diagram of how water chestnuts work in your body, four recipe cards and one safety section.
August 3, 2023 — Previous version published.
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