25 vegetables containing the letter B — each with origin, classification, and notes.
Below are vegetables that contain the letter B anywhere in the name. Each of the 25 vegetables below opens to a full profile.
The edible young growth of bamboo plants — harvested as they emerge from the soil before the shoots harden into woody cane; a staple of East and Southeast Asian cooking, eaten fresh, tinned, or fermented.
A fragrant Mediterranean herb central to Italian, Thai, and Vietnamese cuisines — with dozens of varieties from sweet Genovese to lemon to holy Thai basil, each with distinct flavor profiles.
A deep crimson taproot with an earthy, sweet flavor, rich in nitrates and folate; the same plant gives us chard from its leaves.
A large, mild, hollow nightshade fruit grown in green, red, yellow, and orange — the same plant changes color with ripeness, the green ones being immature versions of the others.
A tropical vine vegetable with intensely bitter flesh — the most bitter of all commonly eaten vegetables; used across Asia and the Caribbean for its medicinal properties and its role as a flavour counterpoint to rich, fatty dishes.
A Chinese cabbage with crisp white stems and dark green leaves — quick-cooking, mild, and a workhorse of stir-fries, dumpling fillings, and Chinese soups.
Ancient beans from the Mediterranean and Middle East — large, flat, pale green beans in thick pods; eaten fresh in spring as a delicacy; dried as dried fava beans, the basis of ful medames, bissara, and dozens of traditional dishes.
A green flowering brassica with tightly clustered florets, descended from wild Mediterranean cabbage and prized for its fiber and vitamin C.
Tiny cabbage-like buds growing along a tall stalk — the most-divisive vegetable of the 20th century, transformed in the 21st through high-heat roasting and dramatic genetic improvement.
A winter squash with smooth tan skin and dense, sweet orange flesh — one of the most versatile and widely eaten squash varieties; roasts to a caramelised sweetness and blends to a silky soup.
A leafy brassica forming dense round heads, eaten raw, fermented, or cooked across nearly every cuisine in the temperate world.
A crisp, watery fruit (botanically) eaten as a vegetable — sliced fresh, pickled, or blended into cold soups, with cooling associations everywhere it grows.
A long brown-olive Atlantic seaweed (also called winged kelp or badderlocks) — a traditional Scottish and Icelandic food eaten as a salad green, soup ingredient, or chewy snack.
The immature pod of common bean — harvested before the seeds inside develop, eaten whole as a crisp, mild vegetable; one of the most widely grown and versatile vegetables in the world.
A tightly headed crisphead lettuce with cool, watery, mild leaves — the wedge-salad workhorse, the burger-topping standard, and the most-shipped lettuce in the U.S.
A swollen-stem cabbage relative — a bulb of crisp white-green flesh that tastes like a sweeter, milder broccoli stem, eaten raw or cooked across Northern European, Indian, and Vietnamese cuisines.
A small green legume native to South Asia — dried mung beans cook quickly and are used in dals and porridges; sprouted they become bean sprouts; split yellow they make the silkiest dal; whole in Ayurvedic cooking they are considered the most easily digestible pulse.
A small olive-green Indian Himalayan bean — once a major food crop in the Eastern Himalayas, now a "lost crop" being revived for its drought-resilience and unique nutritional profile.
A long-podded climbing bean from the Mexican highlands — grown across British and Eastern European gardens for its prolific harvest, eaten as fresh long pods rather than dried beans.
A large yellow-fleshed Scandinavian root vegetable — a hybrid of cabbage and turnip, known as "swede" in Britain and central to Scandinavian, British, and Nordic-influenced cooking.
The traditional British winter brassica — purple or white sprouting broccoli produces a mass of small, tender florets on long stems throughout late winter and early spring, bridging the hungry gap between root vegetables and summer crops; unlike head broccoli, it is harvested by picking individual spears, which encourages further production; the purple variety is sweeter and more tender than supermarket broccoli.
A small ancient bean cultivated by indigenous peoples of the Sonoran Desert for over 5,000 years — extreme drought-tolerance, distinctive flavor, and a major comeback in Native American food sovereignty movements.
A small black-skinned cream-fleshed lentil (also called black gram) — the foundation of South Indian cuisine, the protein in dosa and idli batters, and the dal in dal makhani.
Japan's fiery green condiment — not a chilli heat but a sharp, volatile, nasal-clearing pungency from isothiocyanates that hits instantly and dissipates quickly; true wasabi is the grated rhizome of a semi-aquatic Japanese plant; the green paste served in most Western sushi restaurants is imitation wasabi made from horseradish, mustard, and food colouring.
A heat-tolerant pod bean reaching 30-50 cm long — beloved across Chinese, Thai, Filipino, and Indian cuisines, eaten quick-cooked rather than long-stewed for its distinctive crunch.
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