Loading Vegetable Details...
Please wait while we fetch nutritional information and health benefits
Please wait while we fetch nutritional information and health benefits
Brassica oleracea var. capitata
Cabbage, scientifically known as Brassica oleracea var. capitata, is a cool-season leafy vegetable that forms a dense head of overlapping leaves around a shortened stem. It belongs to the Brassicaceae family and shares its species with broccoli, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, and Brussels sprouts, each shaped by centuries of selective breeding for a different edible structure. Common green cabbage has crisp, pale-to-medium green leaves and a clean, mildly peppery flavor that becomes sweeter and softer with cooking. Red cabbage contributes purple-red color from anthocyanins, while Savoy cabbage has tender, deeply crinkled leaves. Raw green cabbage is low in calories and provides vitamin C, vitamin K, folate, fiber, vitamin B6, manganese, and smaller amounts of several other nutrients. Cutting or chewing brings glucosinolates into contact with the plant enzyme myrosinase, producing biologically active breakdown compounds such as isothiocyanates and indoles. Cabbage can be shredded for slaws, roasted in wedges, sautéed, braised, added to soups, stuffed, pickled, or fermented into foods such as sauerkraut and kimchi. This nutrition profile refers specifically to raw green cabbage; red, Savoy, Napa, cooked, and fermented products have different nutrient values.
Explore Cabbage in stunning detail
Cabbage - Main View
Per 100g
Per 100g
Nutrition breakdown for one serving
Europe and the Mediterranean region, derived from wild Brassica oleracea populations associated with coastal environments
Cultivated cabbage developed from wild Brassica oleracea populations native to parts of Europe and the Mediterranean coastal region. Ancient farmers selected leafy brassicas long before tightly headed cabbage emerged as a distinct crop. Classical Greek and Roman writers described cultivated brassicas, although the compact heads familiar today became more clearly established through European selection during the medieval period. Cabbage spread widely because it tolerated cool weather, produced substantial food from limited land, and could be stored or preserved through salting, pickling, and fermentation. European migration and global trade later carried heading cabbages to the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. Modern breeding has produced green, red, white, Savoy, pointed, early-season, heat-tolerant, and long-storage cultivars.
Cabbage is a cool-season crop. Spring varieties are harvested earlier and tend to be tender, while autumn and winter storage cabbages form denser heads and keep longer. Regional production, cold storage, and trade make cabbage available throughout the year.
Each variety offers unique flavors, textures, and culinary applications
Keep your fruit fresh and delicious for longer
Choose a head that feels firm, compact, and heavy for its size, with crisp leaves appropriate to the variety.
Avoid heads with widespread yellowing, slime, mold, deep cracks, soft watery areas, or a rotten odor.
Minor damage to an outer leaf can be removed, but avoid cabbage with decay extending into the head or core.
For cut or shredded cabbage, choose refrigerated packages with intact seals and no excessive liquid or browning.
Select Savoy or pointed cabbage for tender leaves and dense green, red, or storage cabbage when longer keeping quality is important.
Store whole, unwashed cabbage in the refrigerator crisper drawer inside a loose or perforated food-safe bag.
Keep the head intact until needed because cutting increases moisture loss, oxidation, and opportunities for contamination.
Wrap cut cabbage or place it in a clean airtight container and refrigerate it at 4°C or below.
Keep cabbage away from strong ethylene-producing fruit when practical because ethylene can accelerate yellowing and quality loss.
Remove wilted outer leaves before use and discard the head if the core or inner leaves become slimy, moldy, or rotten.
Remove the outermost leaves, rinse the cabbage under clean running water, and dry it with a clean towel before cutting. Do not use soap, detergent, bleach, or household cleaners.
Quarter the head through the core for stability. Remove the dense core if the recipe requires tender leaves, or slice the sound core thinly because it is edible.
Use a sharp knife, mandoline with a hand guard, or food processor to shred cabbage evenly for slaws, stir-fries, and fermentation.
For a more tender raw slaw, lightly salt and massage shredded cabbage, allow it to rest briefly, and drain excess liquid before dressing.
Cook cabbage only until it reaches the desired tenderness; prolonged high heat can intensify sulfur aromas and soften the leaves excessively.
When cooking red cabbage, acidic ingredients such as vinegar or apple help retain a red-purple color, while alkaline ingredients can shift the pigments toward blue-green.
For home fermentation, use a tested recipe, accurate salt measurements, clean equipment, appropriate temperature control, and suitable containers rather than improvising preservation conditions.
For freezing, water-blanch shredded cabbage for 1.5 minutes, cool immediately in ice water, drain thoroughly, and pack in freezer-safe containers.
Preserve freshness for months
Remove damaged outer leaves, rinse the cabbage, cut out tough portions if desired, and shred or slice it into useful portions.
Water-blanch shredded cabbage for 1.5 minutes before freezing to slow quality-damaging enzyme activity.
Cool blanched cabbage immediately in ice water for approximately the same amount of time, then drain and dry it thoroughly.
Pack in freezer-safe containers or bags, remove excess air, label with the date, and freeze promptly.
Use frozen cabbage mainly in soups, braises, casseroles, and stir-fries because thawing softens its crisp texture.
Label frozen items with the date to track freshness. Most fruits maintain quality for 2-3 months when properly frozen. For best results, use airtight containers or freezer bags to prevent freezer burn.
Discover delicious possibilities
Cabbage allergy is uncommon but possible. Reactions may include oral itching, hives, swelling, digestive symptoms, wheezing, or, rarely, anaphylaxis. Cross-reactivity with other Brassicaceae foods can occur in some sensitized individuals, but it should not be assumed without assessment. Anyone with breathing difficulty, throat or facial swelling, faintness, or another severe reaction should seek emergency medical care and obtain evaluation from a qualified allergy specialist.
Pesticide residues vary by country, season, and production practice. Regulatory monitoring generally finds the great majority of sampled foods within established tolerances. Remove the outermost leaves and rinse cabbage thoroughly under clean running water before cutting. Do not use soap, detergent, bleach, or household cleaners. Washing and trimming can reduce dirt and some surface residues but cannot remove every residue or internal contamination. Organic cabbage can also use approved pesticides and still requires safe handling.
Surprising trivia you'll love!
A cabbage head is a dense arrangement of overlapping leaves around a shortened stem, not a single leaf or bulb.
Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, and Brussels sprouts are cultivated forms of the same species, Brassica oleracea.
Red cabbage anthocyanins change color with acidity, appearing redder in acidic conditions and bluer or greener in alkaline conditions.
The English word cabbage is connected to an Old French word associated with a head, reflecting the vegetable's rounded form.
Cool growing conditions can make some cabbage cultivars taste sweeter as the plant adjusts the sugars and other solutes in its tissues.
Cabbage is normally harvested during its first growing season, although the plant is biennial and can flower and set seed after exposure to suitable cold conditions.
Fermented cabbage traditions developed in multiple regions, including sauerkraut in Europe, kimchi in Korea, and curtido in Central America.
Dense storage cabbages were historically valuable because they could supply vegetables during seasons when fresh produce was limited.
A cabbage head is primarily a tightly packed cluster of leaves arranged around a very short central stem. It is therefore classified botanically as a leaf vegetable rather than a root, bulb, flower, or fruit. The pale central core is shortened stem tissue and is also edible when it is sound, although it is denser and more fibrous than the leaves. Heading cabbage is Brassica oleracea var. capitata, one cultivated form of the same species that humans selected into kale, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and Brussels sprouts.
Raw and cooked cabbage offer different advantages, and neither is universally healthier. Raw cabbage retains crunch and generally preserves more heat-sensitive vitamin C and active plant myrosinase. Cooking softens the fiber, reduces volume, and may make cabbage easier for some people to eat and digest. Boiling can move vitamin C and other water-soluble compounds into the cooking liquid, while steaming, microwaving, sautéing, and brief stir-frying limit direct water contact. Long cooking can intensify sulfur aromas. Eating cabbage in several forms is more useful than assigning one method absolute superiority.
Cabbage contains fiber and fermentable carbohydrates that intestinal microorganisms can use, producing gases such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and, in some people, methane. Its sulfur-containing compounds can also influence odor. This reaction is not the same as an allergy, and tolerance varies considerably. Start with a smaller serving, increase fiber gradually, chew thoroughly, and try cooked rather than large raw portions. Rinsing canned or fermented accompaniments does not remove cabbage fiber. Persistent pain, major bowel changes, or severe symptoms warrant assessment by a qualified healthcare professional.
Cabbage contains glucosinolates whose breakdown products can influence iodine handling under certain experimental conditions. For most people with adequate iodine intake, ordinary portions of raw or cooked cabbage are not considered a reason for concern. Risk is more plausible with iodine deficiency and unusually large, repetitive intakes of raw cruciferous vegetables. Cooking alters myrosinase activity and some breakdown products. People with diagnosed thyroid disease should not eliminate nutritious cruciferous vegetables automatically, but they should follow their clinician's advice and avoid using concentrated cabbage or green powders as self-treatment.
People taking warfarin can often eat cabbage, but they should keep their vitamin K intake reasonably consistent. Raw green cabbage provides approximately 63% of the FDA Daily Value for vitamin K per 100 g, and sudden large changes in cabbage or other vitamin K-rich foods can alter warfarin's anticoagulant effect and INR results. Complete avoidance is not routinely necessary and can unnecessarily reduce vegetable variety. Discuss major dietary changes, frequent large cabbage servings, green powders, or juice concentrates with the clinician or anticoagulation service managing the medication.
Both are heading forms of Brassica oleracea and supply fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, folate, and glucosinolates, but their exact amounts differ. Red cabbage contains red-purple anthocyanin pigments and generally has a different vitamin C, vitamin K, carotenoid, and mineral profile from green cabbage. Variety, maturity, growing conditions, storage, and preparation also affect composition. The nutrition values in this object describe raw green cabbage and should not be reused unchanged for red cabbage. Choosing both colors provides culinary variety and a broader range of pigments without requiring one to be labelled universally better.
Keep a whole, unwashed cabbage in the refrigerator crisper drawer, preferably in a loose or perforated food-safe bag that limits moisture loss without trapping excessive condensation. Dense green and red heads usually keep longer than tender Savoy or pointed types. Once cut, wrap the exposed portion or place it in a clean airtight container and refrigerate at 4°C or below. Use cut cabbage within roughly three to seven days. Discard cabbage with slime, mold, liquid decay, a rotten core, or an unpleasant spoilage odor rather than merely trimming deeply affected tissue.
No. Proper lactic-acid fermentation can produce populations of live microorganisms, but the final product contains live cultures only if they remain viable. Heat processing or pasteurization can greatly reduce or eliminate them, and storage conditions and product age also matter. Labels such as unpasteurized or contains live cultures can provide useful information, but they do not make the product a treatment for disease. Sauerkraut, kimchi, and similar foods may contain substantial sodium, and their nutrition differs from raw cabbage. Home fermentation should follow a tested recipe with accurate salt and temperature control.
Yes. Remove the outermost leaves, rinse the head under clean running water, and dry it with a clean towel before cutting. Washing first helps prevent a knife from carrying dirt or microorganisms from the outside into freshly cut surfaces. Do not use soap, detergent, bleach, or household cleaning products on cabbage. Cut away minor damaged areas and discard a head with widespread rot or mold. Use clean hands, knives, boards, and containers, and keep cabbage that will be eaten raw separate from raw meat, poultry, seafood, and their juices.
Sustainability insights
Cabbage can produce substantial edible weight per unit of land and stores longer than many tender leafy vegetables, which can help reduce spoilage. Its environmental impact still depends on fertilizer production and field emissions, pesticide use, irrigation, soil management, machinery, refrigeration, packaging, transport, and waste. Crop rotation, integrated pest management, efficient nitrogen application, erosion control, water-efficient irrigation, and using edible outer leaves and cores can improve sustainability.
There is no single universal carbon-footprint value for cabbage. Results vary with yield, fertilizer management, field energy, storage duration, packaging, processing, transport mode, and lifecycle boundaries. Seasonal field-grown cabbage moved efficiently generally has a relatively modest footprint compared with many animal-derived foods, while heated protected cultivation, intensive refrigeration, air freight, processing, and avoidable waste can increase emissions.
Cabbage water requirements vary with climate, rainfall, soil, crop duration, yield, and irrigation method. A global liters-per-kilogram figure should not be stated without defining whether green, blue, and grey water are included. Rain-fed seasonal production, soil-moisture monitoring, drip irrigation where appropriate, healthy soil structure, and reducing field and retail losses can lower pressure on freshwater resources.
Locally grown cabbage may require less transport and can support regional farms, but distance alone does not determine total impact. Seasonal production, farm efficiency, storage energy, packaging, transport mode, and waste can matter as much as origin. A durable cabbage transported efficiently may compare favorably with a local crop grown using energy-intensive protected cultivation. Buying an appropriate quantity and using the core, sound outer leaves, and leftovers safely can reduce household waste.
We aim to keep this Cabbage profile accurate and easy to understand. Nutrition values and % Daily Value figures are based on established reference databases and standard daily value guidance.
Last updated: August 23, 2026
Medical disclaimer
This page is for general educational purposes and does not replace professional medical advice.
Found an issue? Contact us.
