Celery Leaves: Flavor, Nutrition and How to Use the Top of the Plant

What do you do with the leafy tops on a bunch of celery? Use them as an herb. They taste like the stalk, only greener and more concentrated, and they’re good chopped into soups and stews, scattered over salads, or dried. In parts of Asia, a separate leafy form of celery is grown just for its leaves, and that form is much higher in minerals than blanched stalk celery. The plant goes back a long way, too: a crown of dry wild celery was once the prize at the Isthmian Games.

At a glance

What celery leaves are

Apium graveolens is a biennial of the temperate biome. The cultivated plant splits into three cultivar groups: Leaf Celery (var. secalinum), Stalk Celery (var. dulce) and Celeriac (var. rapaceum).

That split matters here. The leaves on a head of stalk celery come from a form bred for its stalks. Leaf celery is a separate group grown for its leaves, and it’s used as a flavoring, fresh or as a dried powder. Most of the published composition data below is for leaf celery, not for the tops of stalk celery.

Flavor and aroma

Celery leaves taste like celery stalk with a sharper, more herbal and slightly bitter edge. The pale inner leaves are milder than the dark outer ones. The University of Delaware’s extension service puts celery leaves among the medium-strength herbs, alongside basil, dill and marjoram.⁴

The compounds

PROSEA says the plant contains the glucoside apiin and a volatile oil made up mostly of terpenes, and that the signature smell seems to come from the lactone sedanolid.⁵ A 2019 review points to a series of phthalide derivatives, among them sedanenolide and 3-n-butylphthalide, as the source of celery essential oil’s characteristic odor.¹ Both sources describe the plant’s oil in general, not leaf oil specifically.

Origin and history

The native range of Apium graveolens runs from Macaronesia to North Africa and Europe to the western Himalaya. The wild form is a marsh plant of temperate Europe and Asia.

What can be traced:

• Medicine first. Celery was brought into cultivation before the Christian era, first as a medicinal plant, and later grown for its leaves as a flavoring.
• Greek games. The prize at the Isthmian Games near Corinth was originally a crown of dry wild celery, swapped for a pine wreath in Roman times.⁶
• Milder forms. Milder-tasting forms weren’t selected until the 16th or 17th century, in France or Italy, and those gave us stalk celery and celeriac.⁵
• China. Celery’s history in China goes back at least to the 6th century.
• The word. The English “celery” traces back to the Greek sélīnon.

Several colorful claims get passed around, but we couldn’t trace any of them to a source we could open: celery leaves in Tutankhamun’s tomb, celery in Egyptian and Greek funeral rites, celery as a Greek aphrodisiac, a mention in Homer, the Sicilian city of Selinunte being named after it, Roman superstitions about bad luck, and a 19th-century history of celery as a luxury vegetable. We’ve left them out.

How celery leaves are used

• Soups, stocks and stews. The leaves bring celery flavor without the stalk’s crunch. For long-simmered dishes, the University of Delaware’s general advice is to add herbs in the last 45 minutes.⁴
• Southeast Asia. Leaf celery is eaten raw as well as steamed, and minced leaves go into lots of dishes.
• As a parsley-like herb. Chopped leaves work as a garnish, in salads, in tabbouleh-style grain salads and in green sauces or pesto.
• Homemade celery salt. Mix dried, crumbled leaves with salt. Commercial celery salt is usually made from the seed, though, not the leaf: McCormick’s label lists only salt and celery seed.⁷ See celery salt.

More ideas in celery leaves uses.

Buying and storage

Look for leaves that are green and perky, with no yellowing or slime. PROSEA’s storage advice is for celery in general, not the leaves specifically: about one month near 0 °C at very high humidity, kept away from other produce, since celery readily picks up other flavors.⁵ We found no published shelf-life figure for the leaves on their own. Dried leaves are usually kept in a sealed jar away from light, though we didn’t find anyone who’s tested how long they last.

Nutrition

PROSEA gives this composition for leaf celery (the leaf cultivar group) per 100 g edible portion:⁵

Leaf celery has a much higher mineral content than blanched stalk celery.⁵ These figures are for the leaf cultivar group, so don’t read them as values for the tops of stalk celery. We found no separate published analysis for those. PROSEA gives no figures for vitamin K or folate.

You’ll often hear that celery tastes salty because it’s high in sodium. Leaf celery’s 151 mg per 100 g is a measured figure,⁵ but no source we found links it to the taste.

Safety

Allergy

Celery is one of the allergens EU law requires on food labels: Annex II of Regulation 1169/2011 lists “celery and products thereof.”² It isn’t among the major food allergens named by the US FDA, so US labels don’t have to call it out.³ If you have a celery allergy, treat the leaves as celery.

Health claims

You’ll see claims that celery leaves help prevent cancer, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, or treat constipation. We couldn’t trace any of them to human evidence for the leaves, and we’re not claiming celery leaves treat or prevent anything.

Substitutes and comparisons

Lovage is the closest flavor match, and flat-leaf parsley with a little celery seed gets close in cooked dishes. See celery leaves substitutes for ranked options. Related pages:

• Celery seeds
• Celery powder
• Celery flakes
• Celery salt
• Lovage
• Parsley