Fennel 101

Sources include: On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee and Field Guide to Produce by Aliza Green.

  • Using A Mandolin To Slice A Fennel Bulb Using A Mandolin To Slice A Fennel Bulb
  • A Whole Raw Fennel Bulb A Whole Raw Fennel Bulb

Fennel 101

Sources include: On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee and Field Guide to Produce by Aliza Green.

Fennel, also sometimes called finocchio or florence fennel, is the plant that produces fennel seeds -- which may be more familiar to home cooks than the fennel plant itself.  Fennel are white and green bulbous plants that in their whole, raw state look a bit like a vegetable version of Sideshow Bob with its rounded shape and topping of lacy green fonds.  

Fennel is a year-round vegetable that like an onion has a bulbous shape and layers -- but its flavor is nothing at all onion-like.  Instead its taste is fresh, ever so slightly sweet, subtly anise when eaten raw, and more distinctively so when cooked.  When raw, its texture is crispy and wet like an apple; when cooked its texture softens.

High in fiber and low in calories (1 cup raw = 27 calories), fennel contains lots of vitamin C and also counts iron, calcium, folate, potassium, and riboflavin among its nutrients.

How To Buy and Store Fennel


Preparing Fennel


Cooking With Fennel

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Fennel

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