While vegetables in the cooking greens category aren’t always related to one another botanically, they all share some similar qualities. Most are easy to grow, and many offer a long season of cut-and-come-again harvesting, meaning you can take what you need for cooking and leave the rest of the plant to continue producing. Many cooking greens can be frozen for winter eating, and most can be succession planted—planted at different times in the same garden area to make maximum use of the growing season. Here are 12 vegetables for the home garden that make great cooking greens. Beet greens are delicious if they are rinsed well, cut into 2-inch pieces, then boiled in slightly salty water for three to five minutes before rinsing and serving. If you expect to later harvest the roots, leave a good amount of foliage in place as you selectively clip some leaves to use for cooked greens. The greens will be most tender if harvested early in the season, before the roots have matured. Tasting similar to spinach though a little stronger, turnip tops have many uses in cooking. They are usually boiled, and are often added to ham dishes. This plant can self-seed and spread rampantly, so take pains to supervise it in the garden. Dandelion leaves make a good addition to salads, but as a cooked green they are usually sauteed in oil for use in casseroles, or as a replacement for spinach in recipes calling for that leafy vegetable. But make sure not to harvest dandelions from your lawn if the turf has been treated with weed killers.
