Chives: The Mildest Allium, and How to Use, Store and Substitute It

Want onion flavor without the sting? Reach for chives, and snip them over the food at the last moment instead of cooking them. They’re the thin, hollow leaves of Allium schoenoprasum, a mild herb in the onion’s genus that grows wild across much of the temperate northern hemisphere. Use them right away or keep them refrigerated for up to a week. To keep a surplus, freeze them: dried chives lose a lot of their flavor.

At a glance

What chives are

Chives are a small perennial in the amaryllis family. They grow in clumps of thin, tubular leaves, with dense, round heads of bluish or lilac flowers rising above the foliage. The plant is a bulbous geophyte of the temperate biome.

Wild chives cover a huge range. Their native range is the temperate northern hemisphere, with native regions running from Britain, Scandinavia and the Alps across Russia, Mongolia, Japan and Korea to Alaska, Canada and the northern United States. There are introduced populations in places like Ireland, Belgium and the Caribbean. UW-Madison Extension keeps it simple: chives are native to Europe and Asia.

Garlic chives are a different plant; see garlic chives and garlic chives vs. chives.

Flavor

UW-Madison Extension describes chives as a culinary herb with a mild onion flavor that gets more pungent in hotter weather.¹ They come across fresh, green and gently oniony, with a faint garlic note.

History

UW-Madison Extension says chives have been grown in Europe since the Middle Ages, for both cooking and medicine, and by the Chinese as long as 4,000 years ago.¹

You’ll find other stories floating around: chives given to Alexander the Great in Siberia, grown in medieval Europe to keep insects away, used as an aphrodisiac. We couldn’t trace any of them to a source, so they’re left out. And since Kew records chives as native across most of the northern hemisphere, the question of whether they “came from” Siberia, Greece or China has no single answer.

How chives are used

Chives are a common seasoning for eggs, soups, salads and vegetables. The leaves usually get chopped into short pieces and sprinkled on as a seasoning or garnish just before serving, and the flowers are edible as well.

• Fines herbes. Chives are one of the herbs usually in fines herbes, along with parsley, tarragon and chervil, though the exact mix varies. See fines herbes, fines herbes substitutes, tarragon, chervil and parsley.
• Everyday uses. Chives go on baked potatoes with sour cream, into scrambled eggs and omelets, cream cheese, potato salad, creamy soups and chowders, and over fish. They’re good with dill and parsley.
• Flowers. The flowers are edible too. Pull them apart into florets and scatter them over salads.

Technique

Snip chives with scissors or slice them with a very sharp knife, because a dull blade bruises the hollow leaves. Add them off the heat, at the end. Need a sturdier onion note that can stand up to cooking? See chives vs. green onions.

Buying and storage

Look for firm, evenly green leaves with no yellowing or slime.

UW-Madison Extension says you can use harvested chives right away or keep them refrigerated for up to a week. You can also freeze or dry them, though the leaves lose a lot of their flavor when dried.¹ Freezing is the better way to keep a surplus. For the drying method, see how to dry chives.

The extension guides give the usual herb rule, 1 tablespoon fresh to 1 teaspoon dried.²³ That’s a general herb rule, though, not a chive measurement, and since chives lose so much flavor when dried, you may need more. Start there and taste.

Nutrition

USDA data for raw chives, per 100 g, show 213 µg vitamin K, 218 µg vitamin A (as RAE), 58.1 mg vitamin C, 105 µg folate, 2.5 g fiber and 5.2 mg choline.⁴ Per 100 g, that’s 178% of the FDA Daily Value for vitamin K, 24% for vitamin A, 9% for fiber and about 1% for choline.⁴⁵

Nobody eats 100 g of chives, though. A tablespoon of chopped chives weighs 3 g,⁴ so it gives you about 6 µg vitamin K (5% of the Daily Value) and under 0.1 g fiber. Chives are a nice garnish, not a meaningful source of nutrients at normal amounts, and none of the evidence we reviewed shows that they treat or prevent any disease.

Safety

As food, chives are about as uneventful as it gets. The one thing to know concerns vitamin K. NIH’s Office of Dietary Supplements advises people on the blood thinner warfarin to keep their vitamin K intake about the same from day to day.⁶ A tablespoon of chives adds about 6 µg,⁴ so a garnish adds little. If you’re on warfarin and eat a lot of chives on some days and none on others, ask your doctor.

Substitutes and comparisons

NDSU and NMSU Extension both give the same swap: 2 teaspoons of finely chopped green onion tops for 2 teaspoons of chives.²³ For more options, sorted by what the chives are doing in the dish, see chives substitutes.

• Chives substitutes
• Chives vs. green onions
• Garlic chives vs. chives
• Garlic chives substitutes
• How to dry chives
• Fines herbes