Vegetables Vocabulary

One type of food that nearly everyone eats every day is the food group called vegetables. Some vegetables grow underground, including root vegetables like potatoes, yams, carrots, turnips and beetroot as well as bulbs like onion and garlic.

vegetables

Green vegetables or greens include leaf vegetables like spinach and cabbage as well as certain legumes like peas and string beans. Many vegetables have seeds inside, and the best-known of these include pumpkin, squash, eggplant and the many kinds of pepper like the green pepper, chilli pepper and the bell pepper or capsicum. Salad vegetables such as lettuce and cucumber are eaten raw while other vegetables, including cauliflower, mushrooms and stem vegetables like asparagus and celery, can be eaten either raw or cooked.


artichoke

asparagus

beetroot

bell pepper or capsicum

broccoli

Brussels sprouts

cabbage

carrot

cauliflower

celery

cucumber

eggplant

garlic

lettuce

mushrooms

onion

peas

potato

pumpkin

spinach

string beans or green beans

turnip

yam

zucchini

bulb (noun): a round underground part of certain plants like onion and garlic plants - Lots of flowers like tulips and daffodils are grown from bulbs.

greens (noun): green vegetables - Mum says we have to eat our greens before we have dessert.

leaf vegetable (noun): a leaf or leafy plant that's eaten as a vegetable, like spinach - There are hundreds of leaf vegetables in Africa that we've never heard of.

legume (noun): a seed that grows in a pod, like a pea or bean - A healthy diet includes lots of legumes.

raw (adjective): not cooked - Some people think cooking destroys vitamins so they eat lots of raw food.

root vegetable (noun): a vegetable that grows under the ground, like potato and carrot - If root vegetables aren't harvested in time, they can rot in the ground.

salad vegetable (noun): a vegetable that's often used in salads - All the salad vegetables are in the same part of the supermarket.

vegetable (noun): part of a plant that can be cooked and eaten with a main course - The more fruit and vegetables we eat, the healthier we'll be.

Contributor: Matt Errey. Matt is the author of several books including 1000 Phrasal Verbs in Context and Common English Idioms for learners, and Matt's ESL Games and Quizzes for teachers.