Kale belongs to the species Brassica oleracea, within the Brassicaceae family, which also includes cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. It falls under the Acephala group, meaning “without a head,” distinguishing it from cabbages that form tight leaf heads. Botanically, kale is a leafy biennial grown as an annual, and it is known for its edible leaves that vary in shape, color, and texture depending on the variety.
Historically, kale is one of the oldest cultivated vegetables in the Brassica family. It is believed to have originated in the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor, where it was grown as early as 2000 BCE. The ancient Greeks and Romans considered kale a staple green, often consuming it cooked. Its hardiness and ease of growth made it popular in European gardens through the Middle Ages and beyond.
Kale was introduced to other parts of the world through European colonization. In particular, it became a key crop in colder regions due to its ability to thrive in low temperatures. In Scotland and Northern Europe, kale was a dietary mainstay, often grown in every home garden and even referred to as “kail,” which also became a generic word for meal or food.
Today, kale is cultivated globally and recognized for its nutritional value and culinary flexibility. It’s packed with vitamins A, C, and K, as well as calcium, iron, and fiber. Its antioxidant properties and anti-inflammatory compounds have contributed to its modern reputation as a “superfood,” especially in health-conscious and plant-based diets.
Kale is remarkably diverse in appearance and flavor. Some varieties are frilly and curled, others flat and smooth; leaf colors can range from light green to deep purple. These differences are not just aesthetic—they influence taste, texture, and best uses. For example, curly kale holds up better when cooked, while flat-leaf types like Lacinato are often preferred raw in salads.
In agriculture, kale is prized for its resilience. It grows well in a range of soils and climates and can survive frost, which even improves its flavor by increasing natural sugars. It can be harvested repeatedly from the same plant, making it a sustainable and economical crop for both commercial farmers and home gardeners.
Culinarily, kale is incredibly versatile. It can be eaten raw, sautéed, steamed, roasted, or even blended into drinks. Around the world, it features in traditional dishes such as Portuguese caldo verde, Dutch boerenkool, and African vegetable stews. Its ability to adapt to many cuisines, along with its nutritional benefits, ensures kale remains a valued plant in kitchens and gardens alike.
Types of Kales
Curly Kale
Curly kale is the most recognizable and widely available variety of kale. Its leaves are tightly ruffled and vibrant green, with a coarse texture and fibrous stems. It has a bold, peppery flavor that mellows when cooked. Due to its structure, it holds up well in hearty dishes and is excellent for making kale chips, sautéing with garlic, or blending into green smoothies. It’s also a staple ingredient in soups and stews, where it softens and absorbs flavors well.
Lacinato Kale (Dinosaur Kale)
Also known as Tuscan kale or cavolo nero, Lacinato kale features long, dark bluish-green leaves with a wrinkled, almost reptilian texture. Its flavor is deeper and earthier than curly kale, with a slightly nutty undertone. It’s prized in Italian cooking, especially in traditional dishes like ribollita or simply sautéed with olive oil and lemon. It’s also one of the best kales for raw salads due to its tender leaves that become even softer when massaged.
Red Russian Kale
Red Russian kale is known for its flat, fringed leaves that are grey-green with deep purple veins and stems. It has a sweet, mild flavor, especially when harvested young. The texture is tender and less fibrous than curly varieties, making it ideal for raw salads, juicing, or quick sautés. Its cold tolerance enhances its flavor, often turning sweeter after a light frost. It’s also a beautiful addition to ornamental gardens due to its striking coloration.
Siberian Kale
Siberian kale is a cold-hardy variety with broad, slightly wavy leaves that are pale green and soft to the touch. It grows vigorously and withstands harsh conditions, making it popular for winter gardens. Its flavor is mild and slightly sweet, making it perfect for soups, stir-fries, and steaming. The leaves are also tender enough for use in fresh salads, especially when picked young.
Premier Kale
Premier kale is an early maturing variety with smooth-edged, dark green leaves and a mild, pleasant taste. It’s known for its quick growth and high productivity, often used in spring and fall gardens. This kale is well-suited for raw preparations, like salads or wraps, but also adapts well to steaming and light sautéing. Because it produces fewer tough stems, it requires less prep work before cooking.
Scarlet Kale
Scarlet kale is both decorative and edible, with deeply curled leaves in shades of rich purple to reddish violet. Its cold hardiness deepens the color further in cool weather, making it a stunning addition to garden beds and dishes alike. While slightly tougher than green varieties, it develops a sweeter flavor after frost and is ideal for juicing, kale chips, or cooked dishes where color contrast is desired.
Redbor Kale
Redbor kale is another strikingly ornamental variety with dark burgundy, deeply curled leaves. It stands out in both edible landscapes and salads, where its firm texture adds a crunch. This kale variety is rich in anthocyanins—antioxidants that give it its purple hue—and retains some of its color even when cooked. It is suitable for sautéing, baking, or using as a vibrant garnish.
White Russian Kale
White Russian kale features broad, deeply cut pale green leaves with white veins. It’s a sweeter and more tender relative of Red Russian kale and thrives in colder climates. This variety is excellent for soups and stir-fries, and its tender leaves are great raw in salads. Its sweetness increases after frost, making it ideal for fall and early winter harvesting.
Dwarf Blue Curled Kale
Compact and robust, Dwarf Blue Curled kale produces tight, blue-green curly leaves on short stalks, making it perfect for small gardens or containers. It’s cold-tolerant and continues producing well into winter. Its firm texture is excellent for kale chips, while the strong, slightly bitter flavor pairs well with smoky meats and hearty soups.
Vates Kale
Vates kale is a slow-growing, compact variety with finely curled, dark green leaves. It is known for its tolerance to frost and its ability to maintain a fine flavor even in cold weather. This kale is frequently used for cooking, especially in Southern-style dishes where it’s braised with smoked meats or simmered with beans and vinegar. It also freezes well, making it a great choice for preservation.
Winterbor Kale
Winterbor kale is a hybrid variety with thick, frilly leaves that range from green to blue-green. It’s exceptionally frost-hardy and maintains both texture and flavor through snow and freezing temperatures. The leaves are coarse, so they are best cooked—steamed, sautéed, or added to soups and stews. It is also popular among commercial growers due to its consistent yield and hardiness.
Beira Kale (Portuguese Kale)
Beira kale, also known as Portuguese kale, features large, flat, cabbage-like leaves that are thick and tender. It has a mild, sweet flavor and is essential in Portuguese cuisine, particularly in caldo verde, a traditional soup made with sausage and potatoes. Its broad leaves can also be used as wraps or chopped into stir-fries, and it thrives in warm and mild climates.
Tronchuda Kale
Tronchuda is similar to Beira kale, with thick, flat leaves and wide midribs. The leaves resemble collards more than traditional kale but are sweeter and more succulent. This kale is popular in Mediterranean cooking and is excellent for long-simmered dishes, stews, and soups. Its large, tender leaves can also be stuffed or used as wrappers for grain and meat fillings.
Chinese Kale (Gai Lan)
Chinese kale, or Gai Lan, is a leafy green common in Asian cuisine. It has thick stems, broad dark green leaves, and small edible flower buds. The flavor is robust and slightly bitter, similar to broccoli. It is typically stir-fried with garlic, steamed, or blanched and served with oyster sauce. Unlike Western kale varieties, Gai Lan is grown primarily for both its leaves and stems.
Thousandhead Kale
Thousandhead kale is a rare heirloom variety that produces an abundance of large, flat leaves with mild flavor and soft texture. It is tall-growing and highly productive, traditionally used as both a livestock fodder and a cooking green. The leaves are best harvested young for human consumption and can be steamed, boiled, or chopped into dishes. It’s also known for its long harvesting season and resistance to bolting.
Dwarf Green Curled Kale
This variety is closely related to Dwarf Blue Curled, but with a greener hue and slightly more compact growth. The tightly curled leaves are robust and have a strong, slightly bitter flavor that softens when cooked. It is a favorite for kale chips, braised greens, and freezing. Its low-growing habit makes it ideal for small gardens and raised beds.
Kale Rapini (Kale Raab)
Kale rapini is not grown primarily for its leaves, but rather for its tender flowering shoots that appear in early spring. These shoots, along with the young leaves and buds, are edible and have a flavor that combines the mild bitterness of kale with the nuttiness of broccoli. It’s best stir-fried, steamed, or added to pasta dishes and omelets for a fresh, seasonal green.
Sea Kale
Though not a true kale (it’s in the genus Crambe), sea kale is often grouped with kales due to its edible leaves and growing habits. It features thick, fleshy, blue-green leaves and is native to coastal areas of Europe. The taste is salty and nutty, and the young shoots are especially prized in gourmet cuisine. It’s typically blanched or steamed and served with butter or lemon.
Scotch Kale (Scotch Curled Kale)
Scotch kale is an old-fashioned variety with thick, curled leaves in a bluish-green color. It has a coarse texture and strong cabbage-like flavor, making it best suited for boiling, braising, or long-cooked stews. It’s one of the most cold-hardy kales and continues to grow even in snow-covered gardens, making it a staple in northern climates.
Black Magic Kale
A refined cultivar of Lacinato, Black Magic kale has extra-dark green, almost black leaves that are long, narrow, and heavily blistered. It grows well in warm climates and is appreciated for its uniform growth and mild, slightly sweet flavor. It’s especially good raw in salads or lightly sautéed with oil and garlic, and its elegant look also makes it appealing as a garnish.
Westlander Kale
Westlander is a hardy, curly-leaf kale bred for resistance to cold, pests, and disease. It has medium-green leaves that are tender when young and ideal for cooking when older. The flavor improves with cold weather, becoming sweeter after frost. This kale is widely used in soups, stir-fries, and traditional winter dishes.
Reflex Kale
A highly productive hybrid, Reflex kale is known for its deep blue-green, tightly curled leaves and uniform growth. It’s commonly grown for commercial production due to its disease resistance and long shelf life. The leaves are tough raw but perfect for steaming, sautéing, and baking. Its structure makes it ideal for decorative garnishing as well.
Darkibor Kale
Darkibor is a hybrid curly kale variety with dense, dark green leaves that grow in tight clusters. It has excellent resistance to cold and pests and maintains its color and texture well during cooking. It’s often used in processing and for fresh markets, great for kale chips, mixed greens, or blended into soups and smoothies.
Bear Necessities Kale
This unique variety is a cross between Japanese kale and other frilly-leafed types. It features extremely fine, feathery leaves that look almost like parsley. Bear Necessities has a mild flavor and delicate texture, making it a favorite in gourmet salads and as a raw garnish. It’s less suitable for long cooking due to its soft leaves.
Red Ursa Kale
Red Ursa is an open-pollinated variety combining traits of Red Russian and Siberian kale. It features deeply lobed, green leaves with purple veins and stems. The leaves are tender and mildly sweet, suitable for salads, smoothies, and light cooking. It’s also noted for its cold tolerance and attractive appearance in edible landscapes.
Prizm Kale
Prizm kale is a compact, hybrid variety bred specifically for container gardening and small spaces. It produces short-stemmed, curly leaves that grow upright and are easy to harvest. The flavor is mild, and the leaves are tender enough to be eaten raw. It’s a favorite for continual harvesting and small-scale culinary use.
Scarletbor Kale
Scarletbor is another hybrid ornamental variety with vivid magenta to purple leaves that retain color well in cold weather. The leaves are deeply curled and can be used in cooking, though slightly tougher than green varieties. Scarletbor adds striking color to garden beds and dishes alike, especially when used in raw salads, garnishes, or lightly cooked.
Blue Knight Kale
Blue Knight kale is a hybrid with smooth, flat, blue-green leaves that resemble collards. It is particularly resistant to disease and thrives in cooler climates. The leaves are mildly flavored and tender, ideal for sautéing or steaming. It’s often chosen by market growers for its uniformity and attractive foliage.
Thousandhead Kale
Thousandhead kale is an old heirloom known for producing massive quantities of large, non-curled, mild-tasting leaves. It’s excellent for cut-and-come-again harvesting and is used both as livestock fodder and a human food source. The soft texture and mellow flavor make it ideal for boiling, wrapping foods, or mixing with other greens.
Portuguese Tronchuda Kale
Tronchuda kale, often confused with Beira kale, has wide, cabbage-like leaves and thick, juicy stems. It thrives in warm climates and produces a high yield. The flavor is sweet and mild, and the leaves are ideal for soups, wraps, or stews. The thick midribs can also be cooked like celery or chard stems.