50 vegetables containing the letter L — each with origin, classification, and notes.
Below are vegetables that contain the letter L anywhere in the name. Each of the 50 vegetables below opens to a full profile.
A peppery, slightly bitter salad leaf with a distinctive mustardy heat that intensifies as the plant ages — also called rocket in Britain and Australia; a Mediterranean staple increasingly consumed worldwide.
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 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 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 pale, dense flower-bud cluster of the same species as broccoli, marketed in recent years as a low-carb stand-in for grains and starches.
Black Tuscan kale — the darkest, most robustly flavoured of all kale varieties, with long, deeply crinkled, almost black-green leaves that become sweeter after the first frost; the essential leaf in ribollita and other Tuscan winter soups; more tender and less bitter than curly kale, it is now a staple of artisan cuisine worldwide.
An ugly knobby celery root with creamy off-white flesh — a hidden European winter staple, eaten roasted, mashed, or grated raw into the French classic *céleri rémoulade*.
A pale-green, fibrous, intensely aromatic stalk used as both vegetable and aromatic base — a key member of French *mirepoix* and the *holy trinity* of Cajun cooking.
A Chinese variety of lettuce grown for its thick fleshy stem rather than its leaves — sliced into matchsticks or chunks for stir-fries, with a crispy mild flavor between celery and lettuce.
A polarizing fresh herb that's central to Mexican, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Middle Eastern cuisines — and tastes like soap to people with specific olfactory genetics.
Large, flat, dark green brassica leaves with a mild-bitter flavour — slow-braised for hours in the American South with smoked pork until silky; also eaten across Africa, Brazil, and Portugal.
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.
A common lawn weed worldwide that's also a respected leaf vegetable — bitter spring greens used from Italian cucina povera to Korean kimchi to American foragers' first wild green of the year.
A common ornamental garden flower whose unopened buds and just-opened flowers are a Chinese vegetable — used dried in stir-fries, fresh in salads, and as a thickener in hot-and-sour soup.
A small, oblong, cream-and-green-striped winter squash with thin edible skin and rich sweet flesh — a 1990s revival of a forgotten 1894 American heirloom that's become a fall farmers'-market favorite.
A feathery aromatic herb that defines Scandinavian, Eastern European, and Eastern Mediterranean cuisine — fresh leaves on cured fish, dried seeds in pickles and breads, and the foundation of Russian and Greek summer cooking.
A purple-podded climbing bean (also called hyacinth bean or lablab) used across South Asian, African, and Caribbean cuisines — both fresh pods and dried beans, with edible flowers and ornamental status as a garden showpiece.
A purple-red Atlantic seaweed eaten as a salty mineral-rich snack and umami ingredient — Maritime Canadian and Irish-Scottish coastal traditions, with a recently-discovered "tastes like bacon when fried" property.
A glossy purple nightshade fruit treated culinarily as a vegetable, central to cuisines from the Mediterranean to South and East Asia.
A bulb-and-frond vegetable with a delicate anise flavor — eaten raw in salads, roasted whole, or braised with citrus, and producing seeds used as a fragrant spice.
A pungent bulbous member of the allium family, used worldwide for its sharp aromatic warmth, and one of humanity's oldest cultivated medicinal foods.
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.
Mexico's most recognised chilli pepper — a medium-heat, thick-walled green or red chile with a bright, vegetal flavour, grown in Jalapa, Veracruz, and eaten fresh, pickled, smoked (chipotle), or as nacho topping worldwide.
A long, slim, deep-purple eggplant with thinner skin and creamier flesh than the globe eggplant — the standard in East Asian cooking, ideal for quick stir-fries and miso preparations.
A knobby, nutty tuber unrelated to artichokes and not from Jerusalem — a North American sunflower relative producing crisp, sweet roots eaten roasted, raw, or in soup.
A hardy leafy brassica with crinkly or flat dark green leaves, packed with vitamin K and tolerant of cold weather long after other greens have given up.
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 long, thick-stemmed cousin of onion and garlic — milder, sweeter, and used as both vegetable and aromatic in soups, gratins, and the classic French *vichyssoise*.
A tropical grass with an intensely citrus-lemony fragrance from its stalks — essential in Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Malaysian cooking; the bottom white section is finely sliced or pounded into pastes, while the whole stalk is used to infuse soups and curries.
One of humanity's oldest cultivated plants — small lens-shaped legume seeds that cook quickly without soaking, providing exceptional plant protein; the foundation of Indian dal, French lentilles du Puy, and Middle Eastern mujaddara.
A crisp leafy green grown in dozens of varieties from delicate butterhead to crunchy iceberg, the foundation of cold salads everywhere.
The starchy underwater rhizome of the sacred lotus plant — when sliced, each round reveals a beautiful symmetrical pattern of hollow tunnels that allows the plant to transport oxygen to its submerged roots; crispy when stir-fried, chewy when simmered, and prized across East and Southeast Asian cuisines.
The sting that becomes a virtue in the pot — stinging nettles are one of Britain's most nutritious wild vegetables, with young spring tips packed with iron, vitamin C, and protein; blanching removes the sting completely and leaves a deep green, earthy leaf used in soups, risotto, pasta, tea, and beer.
The flat, paddle-shaped pad of the prickly pear cactus — eaten across Mexico as a vegetable, slicing into salads, stews, and grilled tacos with a slightly tart green flavor.
An aromatic herb-leaf with a complex, distinctive flavour somewhere between basil, mint, and anise — red and green varieties are central to Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian cuisines; the green variety (*shiso*) wraps sashimi and flavours rice; the red variety colours pickled plums and sesame oil in Japanese cooking.
A loose-leaf lettuce variety with deep red-purple leaf tips — used widely in mixed salads, sandwich layers, and decorative plates for its visual contrast against green lettuces.
The "oyster plant" — a long, white-rooted or black-skinned root vegetable that tastes faintly of oysters when cooked; popular in Victorian Britain and 19th-century European cooking, it declined into obscurity in the 20th century but is now experiencing a revival among chefs interested in forgotten vegetables.
Young onions harvested before bulb formation — also called green onions or spring onions, used worldwide as both garnish and primary ingredient, especially in East Asian cooking.
A British coastal native cultivated as a luxury spring vegetable — the young shoots are blanched by covering the crowns in early spring to exclude light, producing ivory-white, tender spears with a mild, nutty, slightly bitter flavour reminiscent of asparagus; once highly prized at Victorian tables, it fell out of fashion but has been revived by chefs and kitchen gardeners seeking heritage vegetables.
A small, mild, refined onion relative — the preferred onion of French cuisine, with a softer flavor and more delicate texture than common bulb onions.
A sharp, lemony herb-leaf vegetable with one of the most intensely sour tastes in the vegetable garden — its oxalic acid content gives it a flavour like lemon juice with green leafy notes; used in French sorrel soup, as a sauce with fish, wilted with cream, or raw in salads where it cuts through richness.
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 green papery-husked Mexican fruit-vegetable that's the foundation of salsa verde, mole verde, and the green chile cuisine of central Mexico — tart, citrus-like, distinctly different from a tomato despite the name.
A small, brightly colored Andean tuber — pink, yellow, red, or speckled — eaten across Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador for its waxy, slightly mucilaginous flesh and earthy sweetness.
A sweet onion grown only in 20 designated counties of southeast Georgia — its mildness and low sulfur produced by the local soil's unique low-sulfur chemistry.
The woodland carpet of spring — wild garlic (*ramsons*) carpets British and European deciduous woodland floors from March to May, filling the air with garlic scent before the tree canopy closes; every part is edible, from the leaves and stems to the white star-shaped flowers; it is the most aromatic of Britain's edible wild plants and is now widely foraged for restaurant kitchens.
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.
A golden-fleshed Canadian hybrid potato variety renowned for its buttery flavor and creamy texture that needs little enrichment — a cook's favorite for mashing, roasting, and potato salads.
Try vegetables that start with L, or end with L. Or browse the full vegetables index.