Garlic Scapes: What They Are, When to Find Them and How to Cook Them

Seen a tangle of curly green stalks at the farmers market and wondered what they were? Those are garlic scapes, the flower stalks hardneck garlic sends up in late spring and early summer. Growers cut them off to help the bulb, and cooks get a short-season vegetable with a milder garlic flavor than the cloves. Only hardneck garlic makes them, one per bulb, and they’ll keep two to three weeks in the fridge.

At a glance

What a scape is

Garlic comes in two broad types. Hardneck garlic (also called stiffneck, ophio or topset garlic) grows a stiff stalk called a scape; softneck garlic doesn’t. In Maine, the scape grows from the center whorl of leaves in June. In most hardneck varieties it ends in an umbel carrying small round clones called bulbils, not true seed.³ Each bulb produces a single scape.

Most commercial garlic varieties are softneck, and you’ll find scapes more often at farmers markets than in typical grocery stores.

Why growers remove them

University of Maine research found that leaving the scape on the plant shrinks the harvested bulb, and that removing it doesn’t hurt the plant’s in-season growth or how long the bulb stores. The bulletin says to take scapes early, as soon as you can remove the thickened bulbil body just behind the tip, before the stalk lengthens and curls.³ A WSU Extension master gardener article gives the same advice, so the nutrients go to the bulb.⁴

Flavor

Young chopped scapes give a mild garlic flavor, milder than garlic cloves. They taste green and fresh, somewhere between garlic and a young green vegetable like asparagus or green beans, and they get sweeter and softer the longer they cook.

We couldn’t find any published analysis of the sulfur compounds in scapes. For how garlic’s bite forms in the cloves when you cut them, see garlic.

How garlic scapes are used

Extension guides suggest:

• In place of garlic. Cut into small pieces and use as you would garlic in a recipe.
• In place of green onions or scallions.
• Pesto. Both the Maine and Nebraska guides suggest it.
• Grilled, sautéed or roasted.
• Stir-fries, eggs, salads, hummus, pizza and baked potatoes.

People also pickle them, chop them into compound butter, and cut them into lengths for soups. Young, tender scapes are better raw; older, tougher ones are better cooked. The thin tip above the bulbil swelling is often trimmed off as fibrous.

A note on scape pesto and oil

UC Agriculture and Natural Resources warns that garlic stored in oil must not be kept at room temperature, and that refrigerated garlic in oil should be used within 4 days; commercial garlic-in-oil products are made under strict guidelines.⁵ That guidance is written for garlic cloves, and we found nothing specific to scapes. The cautious choice is to treat homemade scape pesto the same way: refrigerate it and use it within days, or freeze it.

Buying and storage

Look for scapes that are firm, undamaged and evenly green. A Wisconsin extension sheet says to look for curled scapes with a yellow-green stalk and a white, tender bulb.

Store them unwashed in a plastic bag in the fridge. Nebraska Extension gives up to three weeks,¹ and the Wisconsin sheet two to three weeks.² For longer storage, see how to store garlic scapes.

Garlic in history

We couldn’t trace a separate written history for scapes; the history belongs to garlic as a whole. A 2001 review in the Journal of Nutrition notes that garlic has turned up in Egyptian pyramids and ancient Greek temples. It was given to laborers for strength and work capacity and to the original Olympic athletes in Greece, and ancient medical texts from Egypt, Greece, Rome, China and India describe its uses.⁶ Garlic’s native range runs from Central Asia to northeastern Iran. For more, see garlic.

You’ll also hear stories about garlic shortages causing strikes among pyramid builders, garlic in Tutankhamun’s tomb, and garlic rations for Greek soldiers. We couldn’t trace any of them to a source, so we’re not passing them on as fact.

Nutrition and health

We found no USDA or other official nutrient profile for garlic scapes. A Wisconsin extension fact sheet calls them high in fiber and lists vitamins A and C, without figures.² We couldn’t check claims that scapes are a meaningful source of calcium or iron.

There’s no research on scapes specifically. For garlic in general, the NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health reports that eating garlic doesn’t seem to lower the risk of stomach cancer, and that it’s uncertain whether garlic affects the risk of colorectal cancer.⁷ We’re not claiming garlic scapes prevent cancer, bone loss or any other disease.

Substitutes and comparisons

Scapes can stand in for green onions or scallions. Going the other way, try the green tops of scallions with a little minced garlic, then taste and adjust.

• Garlic scapes substitutes
• How to store garlic scapes
• Garlic chives, a different plant with flat leaves and edible flower stalks
• Garlic and wild garlic