Have you ever eaten kohlrabi? These little sputnik-shaped vegetables come in green or purple, can be eaten raw or cooked, and taste a bit like broccoli stems, but milder and slightly sweeter.
The word kohlrabi is German for “cabbage turnip” (kohl as in cole-slaw, and rübe for turnip) though kohlrabi is not a root vegetable at all. It’s a brassica—like cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower—and those cute bulbous shapes grow above ground, not below.
Kohlrabi is a rather versatile vegetable when it comes to how to prepare. We usually eat them raw—peeled, sliced and added to a salad or used for serving with a dip.
You can also steam, boil, bake, grill, or roast them. Just peel away the outside thick skin first. Add them to soups or stews. Grate them and toss with grated carrots or apples.
Boil them and mash them with potatoes or other root vegetables. Stir-fry them with other vegetables, or julienne them and fry them like potatoes. Look for Indian recipes using kohlrabi as they are often used in Indian cuisine.
The leaves are also perfectly edible, and can be cooked up like kale.
If you come by some kohlrabi and are wondering what to make with them, we have a kohlrabi ham bake here on Simply Recipes and the following are several enticing ideas from other food blogs:
Kohlrabi Noodle Salad from Love & Lemons
Roasted Kohlrabi from A Veggie Venture
Kohlrabi Green Apple Noodle Salad from Inspiralized
Kohlrabi Carrot Fritters from a Couple Cooks
Quick Kohlrabi Pickles from Hungry Tigress
Mashed Cauliflower and Kohlrabi from The Lemon Bowl
Beet, Kale, and Kohlrabi Salad from a Couple Cooks
Kohlrabi Kim Chi Salad from Jeanette’s Healthy Living
Kohlrabi with Spiced Coconut Paste from My Diverse Kitchen
Kohlrabi Curry from Cook’s Hideout
Kohlrabi having a good time (just couldn’t resist).
Do you have a favorite kohlrabi recipe? If so, please let us know in the comments.
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Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
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I grow my own Kohlrabi and love to give to friends who have never seen it before.
It tastes great anyway you prepare it. Tonight I sautéed some home grown scallions in olive oil, added precooked chicken breast , sliced kohlrabi, salt and pepper and a generous squeeze of lemon off my tree. Delicious!!
Do you think Alfredo Sauce would work with cooked Kohlrabi???
I add it (cubed) to all my soups including Chicken Chili. It remains crisp and crunchy so it adds a really nice texture. Love, love, love Kohlrabi.
Can you cook the leaves and the roots together like you would turnips .
My Dad was a gardener; (1940’s and 1950’s and then he came back to it in the 1970’s….. he loved to grow “unusual” vegetables….kohlrabi was one of his favorites. He prepared it two ways….peeled, cubed and par boiled and then served in a cream sauce (very much the way he cooked white turnips); sometimes he would slice and saute it in butter and add lots of black pepper….He grew both the green and purple. He thought the bugs were less attracted to the purple variety.