napa cabbage

Or nap·pa cab·bage

[nap-uh kab-ij, nah-puh]

noun

1. a type of Chinese cabbage, Brassica rapa pekinensis, with broad, ruffled, light green leaves that form a cylindrical, compact head, originating in the vicinity of Beijing and now widely cultivated in Europe, North America, and Australia.

2. the leaves and stalks of this plant eaten as a raw or cooked vegetable, especially in East Asian cuisine.

Word History and Origins

Origin of napa cabbage¹

First recorded in 1935–40; from Japanese dialect nappa “greens, salad greens,” equivalent to na “green” + -pa, combining form of ha “leaf”

Example Sentences

Tam was taken aback by the unique shape of the plant — “like a Napa cabbage with a giant baguette coming out of the center” — and, of course, the smell.

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Closely related to turnips and napa cabbage, this mustard green is known for its use in Japanese cuisine.

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She’s called her globally influenced style “third-culture cooking,” as a Chinese woman who grew up in Australia and now lives in New York, where she might spoon a tahini-miso sauce over roasted Napa cabbage, use Brussels sprouts as the unconventional base of a faux egg-salad sandwich or match feta cheese to choy sum greens.

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On a recent drizzly Friday at the Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands, Laura Matter, who leads the Tilth Alliance program, stood in one of the greenhouses, surveying a line of tables covered in plastic flats filled to the brim with plant starts — mustard greens, Napa cabbage, spinach, collard.

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Shaved Brussels sprouts and fennel tossed with spinach and napa cabbage get tang from goat cheese, sweetness from caramelized onions and a nice gloss from walnut vinaigrette.

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