Real Food Encyclopedia | Chives
With their fresh green color and their mildly pungent, crisp onion taste, chives are one of the best additions to almost any savory meal. And while we most frequently use them as a garnish in the U.S., different varieties of chives can also be enjoyed as cooked greens. In the garden, chives are simpler to grow than many other related alliums, like garlic or onions, and they’re also easy to preserve for year-round enjoyment.
Did you know?
- The word chive comes from the French word cive and cepa, the Latin word for onion. The Cantonese word for Chinese chives is gao choy.
- In the early 1900s, chive was a slang word that meant “a shout.”
- In “A Treatise on Gardening by a Citizen of Virginia,” colonial American botanist John Randolph compared chives to other alliums and noted that they “do not affect the breath so much as the other sorts.”
What to look for when buying chives
You’re looking for pert green blades without signs of yellowing, moisture or mildew.
From an underground bulb, European chives emerge in clumps of slender grass-like blades that grow between 12 and 18 inches high. The blades are like hollow tubes that come in a shade of grass green. Both the perfume and flavor is distinctly but mildly onion-like.
Chinese chives have flatter, longer leaf blades than European chives, and are often sold in bigger bunches in Asian markets. Sometimes sold with white blossoming stalks attached, Chinese chives have a flavor that’s closer to garlic than onions.
Sustainability of chives
Home-grown chives make good economic and environmental sense. Easy to grow, chives can be harvested multiple times throughout the growing season. Chive blossoms attract bees and other pollinators and the natural oils in the blades are a natural aphid repellant.
If a chive plant in the garden or on the windowsill is out of the question, we recommend sourcing chives as locally as possible, at a farmers’ market or farm stand. Because fresh chives in the supermarket are typically packaged in plastic, they easily spoil from excess moisture.
Chives seasonality
In the United States, chives are in season from June through August, depending on the variety and where you are located.
Chives and geography
The European chive is considered both the smallest and most delicate member of the extensive Allium family, which includes leeks, garlic and shallots. It still grows wild in mountainous regions in temperate climates worldwide, but it’s widely agreed among botanists that the cultivated version closely resembles its wild ancestors.
Unlike other herbs, chives are not a commodity crop when sold fresh. Commercially grown chives are primarily destined for food products (like sour cream and chive-flavored potato chips) or freeze-dried for the spice aisle. In retail stores, fresh chives are typically chopped and packaged in plastic containers and rarely sold in bunches. Outside the U.S., food distributors import fresh chives from Mexico.
Although Chinese chives are just as easy to grow for home use, they have not as popular among Western gardeners. They largely remain the domain of Asian communities, both in backyard gardens and, increasingly, in Asian grocery stores.
Eating chives
Storing fresh chives
Both European and Chinese chives are hardy and keep for several days in the refrigerator if wrapped loosely in a paper or cloth towel. They do not like moisture, so wait to clean until just before using.
Cooking with chives
If the flavor differences between the two chives (onion versus garlic) feel subtle, the way they work in the kitchen won’t. European chives work like an herb, and its delicate flavor ocmes through best when it’s added to dishes raw just before serving. They make companions to all kinds of dairy — butter, cream cheese, ricotta and sour cream, to name a few. Instead of an intense slice of red onion on your next bagel and cream cheese, consider a handful of chive ringlets (which will play nicely with smoked fish as well). Chive oil and vinaigrettes are excellent. Dress up those deviled eggs, or your next omelet, and don’t forget chive-ing up your favorite potato salad. Try making this chive pesto. Along with chervil, parsley and tarragon, chives are a classic component of fines herbes, a French herb mixture, finely chopped, and used just before using.
Chinese chives, which are more fibrous and toothsome, work more like a vegetable, and are often cooked with eggs or stir fried with meats and other vegetables. It’s also a common component of dumpling fillings alongside pork, mushrooms, cabbage and scallions.
Don’t forget those blossoms, which pack an allium punch. You can throw them into salads, atop crostini (see details below) or hey — how about a batch of chive blossom vinegar. The chive party is just getting started!
For esthetically pleasing results, chop with care. As Deborah Madison writes in “Vegetable Literacy,” “You don’t want to chop chives by running your knife back and forth over the leaves. That bruises and mashes them more than anything. Instead, slice them once through with a sharp knife or snip them with scissors.” That’s hard to do with a dull knife, so make sure to use a honing steel on your knife to ensure quick precise nips on those green blades.
Preserving Chives
You can preserve the harvest by freezing chives a few different ways:
- Chop and flash freeze on a baking tray so they don’t clump.
- Place a teaspoon of chopped chives into ice cube trays then fill each with water and freeze.
- Bunch whole chive blades and roll into a log, tightly wrap in plastic and bind with a rubber band. Remove from the freezer and snip as needed.
Chive nutrition and health
While a tablespoon of chopped chives is a source of protein, calcium, Vitamins A, C and K, and folate, it’s rare to eat even that amount given that European chives are mainly used as a garnish. Chives contain allicin, an organosulfur compound (also present in garlic) that has been studied for its potential ability to control cholesterol and blood pressure. They are also rich in quercetin, a disease-fighting, anti-inflammatory antioxidant that may, among other things, help fight plaque buildup in arteries. In Chinese medicine, garlic chives are considered a yang (or warming) food that supports the liver, stomach and kidney, and boasts detoxifying and antibacterial properties.