Breadfruit: The Superfood Hawaiians Have Eaten for 3,000 Years

If you've never eaten breadfruit, the easiest way to describe it is this: imagine the inside of a fresh-baked sourdough loaf, but it grew on a tree.

Ulu — the Hawaiian name for breadfruit — has been cultivated across the Pacific for at least three thousand years. A single mature tree produces 200 or more fruits a season, which is part of why it spread so completely across the region. It is one of the most prolific staple crops humans have ever domesticated, and it grows without fertilizer in soil that would defeat almost any modern grain.

What breadfruit actually tastes like

Roasted: like a baked potato that wants to be bread.

Fried: like a yuca fry, with a slightly sweeter finish.

Boiled and mashed: nearly identical in texture to mashed potato, but with a gentler, almost buttery flavor that doesn't need much seasoning.

Ripe (rare in stores — you usually buy them green): sweet, custardy, and fragrant. Great in desserts.

Where to find it

Most large Asian and Pacific grocers carry frozen breadfruit. Some farmers markets in coastal cities (especially in California, Hawaii, and South Florida) carry fresh ulu seasonally. If you can't find it locally, Hawaiian Ulu Cooperative ships frozen breadfruit nationwide.

Three ways to start

1. Oven-roasted ulu wedges

Cut a whole breadfruit into eighths, brush with coconut oil and sea salt, roast at 400°F for 35–40 minutes. Eat with anything you'd eat with roast potatoes.

2. Breadfruit "fries"

Cut into thick fries, boil 5 minutes, drain, pat dry, then pan-fry in coconut oil until crisp. Salt aggressively.

3. Ulu mash with coconut milk

Boil chunks until tender, drain, mash with a generous splash of full-fat coconut milk and a pinch of salt. This is the foundational Pacific comfort food.

Why it matters nutritionally

Breadfruit has more potassium than a banana, a low glycemic index for a starchy food, complete protein in small but meaningful amounts, and significant amounts of magnesium, copper, and several B vitamins. It's also high in fiber.

It does what we want a staple carbohydrate to do: keeps you full, doesn't spike your blood sugar the way refined flour does, and gives you minerals along the way.

It's a quietly extraordinary food.

Our upcoming cookbook, The Pacific Plate, includes seven different breadfruit recipes — from the basics above to breadfruit gnocchi and a coconut-breadfruit dessert. Subscribe to be notified when it launches.