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Cabbage
Brassica oleracea var. capitata
A leafy brassica forming dense round heads, eaten raw, fermented, or cooked across nearly every cuisine in the temperate world.
If you've been searching for vegetables that start with C, you'll find 22 detailed vegetables below. We're not interested in giving you only a list of names — every entry on this page links to a full profile with the kind of detail you'd actually want to know.
For vegetables, that means scientific name, family, plant part, season, nutrition, and cooking uses.
List of Vegetables That Start With C
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Cactus
Opuntia ficus-indica
Edible cactus pads (nopales) and stems from prickly pear and related species — a staple of Mexican cooking, eaten grilled, scrambled with eggs, or in salads.
3
Camas
Camassia quamash
A North American native bulb that was a major staple food for Plateau and Pacific Northwest indigenous peoples — slow-roasted in earth ovens to convert its complex carbohydrates into intensely sweet caramelized food.
4
Canna
Canna edulis (now Canna indica)
An edible canna lily — the same showy garden flower whose underground rhizomes were a major Andean food crop, still grown in South America and Asia for starch production.
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Caper
Capparis spinosa
The unopened flower bud of the caper bush, pickled or salt-cured to develop its sharp, briny, faintly lemony flavor — an indispensable accent in Mediterranean cooking and classic sauces from piccata to tapenade.
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Cardoon
Cynara cardunculus
A wild ancestor of the artichoke — its fleshy leaf stalks are eaten like celery, central to Italian and Spanish winter cuisine, while the artichoke we know is bred from the same species' flower buds.
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Carrot
Daucus carota subsp. sativus
A crunchy orange root vegetable rich in beta-carotene, descended from wild purple ancestors and now grown on every continent except Antarctica.
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Cassava
Manihot esculenta
A starchy tropical tuber feeding hundreds of millions across Africa, South America, and Asia — calorie-dense and drought-tolerant, but requires careful processing to remove natural cyanide.
9
Catsear
Hypochaeris radicata
A common dandelion-lookalike weed often called "false dandelion" — its leaves are edible like dandelion (with a milder flavor) and its roots have been roasted as a coffee substitute in foraging traditions.
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Cauliflower
Brassica oleracea var. botrytis
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.
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Cavolo Nero
Brassica oleracea var. palmifolia
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.
12
Celeriac
Apium graveolens var. rapaceum
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*.
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Celery
Apium graveolens
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.
14
Celtuce
Lactuca sativa var. asparagina
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.
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Chard
Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla
A leafy green relative of beets — eaten for its tender leaves and crunchy stems, with rainbow chard varieties bringing dramatic red, yellow, pink, and orange stem colors to plates.
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Chaya
Cnidoscolus aconitifolius
A leafy green from Mexico's Yucatan — once a Mayan staple, with stinging hairs that disappear after 5 minutes of cooking and exceptional protein-and-iron levels making it an emerging "tree spinach" in tropical agriculture.
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Chayote Squash
Sechium edule
A pale green Mexican squash with a single seed and crisp watery flesh — a staple across Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asian diasporas, eaten in soups, stir-fries, and salads.
18
Chickpea
Cicer arietinum
The world's most widely eaten pulse — a round, beige legume cultivated for 10,000 years; the foundation of hummus, dal, chana masala, falafel, and dozens of dishes across the Middle East, Mediterranean, and South Asia.
19
Chives
Allium schoenoprasum
Slim hollow grass-like onion relatives — the mildest member of the *Allium* family, used as fresh herb garnish for soups, eggs, baked potatoes, and countless other dishes.
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Cilantro
Coriandrum sativum
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.
21
Collard Greens
Brassica oleracea var. viridis
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.
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Cucumber
Cucumis sativus
A crisp, watery fruit (botanically) eaten as a vegetable — sliced fresh, pickled, or blended into cold soups, with cooling associations everywhere it grows.
About vegetables starting with C
That's our current list of vegetables starting with the letter C. We add new entries every week — if you have a favorite vegetable starting with C that isn't on this page, let us know and we'll write it up.
Looking for more? Try vegetables that end with C, or contain C anywhere in the name.