• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Umami Days

Umami Days

Meaty with a dash of veggies

  • Pick a meal
    • One Bowl Meals
    • Breakfast
    • Lunch / Dinner
      • Appetizers
      • Salads
      • Soups
      • Main Courses
      • Side Dishes
      • Sweets
    • Snacks
    • Drinks
      • Summer drinks
      • Cold weather drinks
      • Cocktail hour
  • Pick your protein
    • Chicken, duck & turkey
    • Meat
    • Seafood
    • Eggs
    • Mushrooms
    • Tofu
    • Vegetables
  • Pick your carb
    • Rice & grains
    • Noodles
    • Bread
  • Newsletter
  • Sidebar
    • Kitchen
    • Dining
    • Edible Garden
    • Food Tales
  • Newsletter sign-up!
  • Recipe index
    • By Meal
      • One Bowl Meals
      • Breakfast
      • Lunch / Dinner
        • Appetizers
        • Salads
        • Soups
        • Main Courses
        • Side Dishes
        • Sweets
      • Snacks
      • Drinks
        • Refreshing summer drinks
        • Cold weather drinks
        • Cocktail hour
    • By Main Protein
      • Chicken, duck & turkey
      • Meat
      • Seafood
      • Eggs
      • Mushrooms
      • Tofu
      • Vegetables
    • By Carb
      • Rice & grains
      • Noodles
      • Bread
  • Sidebar
    • Kitchen
    • Dining
    • Edible Garden
    • Food Tales
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Copyright
  • Contact
Ingredients Kitchen

Leeks: how to clean,cut and use in cooking

Published: 04.29.2021 » Last updated: 03.24.2022

Leeks look like big scallions and they taste like onions. They are all related although each has distinct characteristics that sets it apart from the others.

Split stalk of leek to remove traces of soil

Like scallions, leeks don’t grow bulbs like onions do. Leeks, like scallions, grow tubular leaves.

Why are some leeks really large while others are smaller?

In regions with four distinct seasons, leeks grown and harvested within the same season, known as “summer leeks” are smaller. Those harvested the following year, or “overwintering leeks” are larger.

In regions with wet and dry season, leeks are generally planted and harvested within the same season and are, as a result, smaller.

Which portions of the leeks are edible?

Generally, the tough and fibrous dark green portion of the leaves are not used for cooking.

Pulling off the fibrous inedible outer skin of leeks

With smaller leeks, however, everything — except the roots and outermost layer of the stalk — is edible. The white and light green portions can be eaten raw in a salad or used in lieu of onions for sauteeing. The dark green portion of the leaves can be tied together and used to flavor broth.

How is embedded soil removed?

Split stalk of leek to remove traces of soil

Especially with large leeks, soil finds its way between the layers of the stalk. To make sure that your leeks are free from any foreign objects, cut the stalk vertically, not all the way through but just to expose the center, then rinse under the tap making sure that the water hits the innermost parts of the stalk directly.

How leeks should be cut depends on how they are intended to be served

Sliced leeks

If you’re going to serve the leeks raw (as in a salad), simply slice the stalks thinly. If you want to make the flavor milder, soak in iced water for about ten minutes then drain before tossing into a salad.

For cooking, how the leeks should be cut depends on the recipe. They can be cut int- one-inch lengths, thinly sliced or even left whole.

More recipes, cooking tips & food tales

Deep frying panko-coated shrimps

Pan frying, shallow frying, deep frying: what’s the difference?

Honey and lemon halves

Honey: kinds, colors, grades and classifications

Making chicken bone broth in cereamic pot

How to make chicken bone broth

Homemade vanilla sugar in jar

Easy homemade vanilla sugar

Truffle and truffle oil

Truffle oil: is It Really extracted from mushrooms?

Pouring red wine into pot with beef

Cooking with wine: Does the alcohol evaporate? Do the calories disappear?

Sidebar

Connie Veneracion, Chiang Mai, 2020

Hi, I’m Connie!

Welcome to Umami Days, a blog that advocates innovative home cooking for pleasurable everyday dining. No trendy diets, no food fads and definitely no ludicrous recipe names like crustless quiche, noodleless pho or chocolate lasagna.

  • About
  • Recipes
  • Privacy
  • Copyright
  • Contact

Umami Days is powered by Apple, Canon, coffee & one bowl meals · Copyright © 2023 Connie Veneracion · All Rights Reserved