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Growing up, steamed cabbage with cod fish was a staple on my plate. Years later I put a handful of red cabbage microgreens on the same dish and wondered what, if anything, the seedling had that the head did not.
So I went and read the papers. Cabbage microgreens nutrition has now been measured by laboratories in four countries, and one of them measured it twice, seven years apart, and got two very different numbers. This post gives you the measured record for the seedling, including the parts that do not flatter it, and it says which form of cabbage each figure came from.
Key Takeaway
Red cabbage microgreens carried 147 mg of vitamin C per 100 g, first of twenty-five microgreens in the founding USDA survey (Xiao et al., 2012). That is one grower, one summer. Four later laboratories read 140, 127, 56 and 49, and the 56 came from the same USDA group on a second grower. The ranking holds; the number belongs to the farm.
Below: which cabbage the seedling comes from, what the data table shows with its sources attached, how red compares with green and savoy, what the research does and does not support, and how to grow, taste and keep the crop.
The cabbage evidence page
Every number on this page, plus the ones that did not survive checking. The measured record and the six answers a stall gets asked, in one place.
What are cabbage microgreens, and which cabbage do they come from?
The video above walks a tray of red cabbage from seed to scissors, and the seedling you see at the end is the whole subject of this post. A cabbage microgreen is the seedling of Brassica oleracea var. capitata, the same plant that becomes the head in your fridge, cut at the cotyledon stage or just as the first true leaf opens. The published trials cut it anywhere from seven days after sowing to twenty, with most landing between ten and fourteen (Di Gioia et al., 2023; Fabek Uher et al., 2023).
Three forms of cabbage get grown this way. Red cabbage, sold as red cabbage microgreen seed under names like Red Acre and Mammoth Red Rock, is the one nearly all of the cabbage microgreens nutrition research grew, and it is the one with the purple stem. Green cabbage and savoy appear in one thirty-variety survey and nowhere else (Xiao et al., 2016). Chinese cabbage, which includes napa and bok choy, is a different species, Brassica rapa, so nothing on this page applies to it.
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What does the nutrition data show for cabbage microgreens?
The plain answer is that cabbage microgreens nutrition depends on who grew the tray, and it moves further than you would guess. So every value in the table below names its study and its basis, and the value belongs to that trial, not to cabbage in general. All rows are red cabbage unless the note says otherwise.
| Nutrient | Amount per 100 g fresh | Where it came from |
|---|---|---|
| Vitamin C (total ascorbic acid) | 147.0 mg | Xiao et al. (2012), 25-microgreen survey, first of 25. Four later labs: 140.2 (Dhaka et al., 2023), 127.4 under LEDs (Kamal et al., 2020), 55.8 (Xiao et al., 2019), 49.2 (Fabek Uher et al., 2023) |
| Vitamin K (phylloquinone) | 280 µg (2.8 µg per g) | Xiao et al. (2012), fifth of 25. Two later labs read 2.2 and 2.3 µg per g (Xiao et al., 2019; Kamal et al., 2020) |
| Beta-carotene | 11.5 mg | Xiao et al. (2012), third of 25. The same lab read 6.1 on a second grower (Xiao et al., 2019) |
| Lutein and zeaxanthin | 8.6 mg | Xiao et al. (2012), third of 25 |
| Calcium | 142.7 mg | Di Gioia et al. (2023), 17-species felt-mat trial, top statistical group. On commercial peat: 75 red, 92 green, 98 savoy (Xiao et al., 2016) |
| Magnesium | 30.3 mg | Di Gioia et al. (2023). 39 mg on peat (Xiao et al., 2016) |
| Potassium | 279.2 mg | Di Gioia et al. (2023), tenth of 17. 240 mg on peat (Xiao et al., 2016) |
| Phosphorus | 48.2 mg | Di Gioia et al. (2023). 65 mg on peat (Xiao et al., 2016) |
| Iron | 0.32 mg | Di Gioia et al. (2023), thirteenth of 17. 0.62 mg on peat (Xiao et al., 2016) |
| Zinc | 0.25 mg | Di Gioia et al. (2023), thirteenth of 17. 0.36 mg on peat (Xiao et al., 2016) |
| Sodium | 12.6 mg | Di Gioia et al. (2023). 32 mg on peat (Xiao et al., 2016) |
| Total phenolics | 306.7 mg GAE | Xiao et al. (2019), third of 30 brassica microgreens |
| Total glucosinolates | 63.1 µmol | Xiao et al. (2019) |
| Dry matter | 5.0 to 7.7 per cent | Five growing systems; the rest is water (Di Gioia et al., 2023; Xiao et al., 2012; Xiao et al., 2016) |
No published table reports calories, fiber, protein on a clean basis, vitamin B6, folate or vitamin A as RAE for cabbage microgreens. Any page quoting those is borrowing, usually from the mature head’s USDA record. The 2012 survey did print vitamin E, and that column reads far above anything ever measured in a leaf, so it is not repeated here.
For scale, the USDA record for a raw red cabbage head reads 53.9 mg of vitamin C, 32.3 µg of vitamin K and 31 mg of calcium per 100 g. The seedling clears the head on the first two in every laboratory, and the head sits inside the seedling’s own vitamin C range. Read the next section before you turn that into a multiplier.
How do red cabbage microgreens compare with green and savoy?
Red does not win every column of cabbage microgreens nutrition, and the one survey that grew all three side by side is the place to check. On commercial peat, savoy cabbage microgreens led the whole thirty-variety panel for calcium at 98 mg, green tied third at 92, and red came ninth at 75 (Xiao et al., 2016). On vitamin C from the same samples, savoy read 91.3 mg, green 74.7 and red 55.8 (Xiao et al., 2019).
Where red pulls ahead is pigment and phenolics. Red cabbage read 306.7 mg of total phenolics per 100 g against 272.4 for green and 192.1 for savoy, and only the red form lays down anthocyanin, the purple in the stem (Xiao et al., 2019). Grown beside five other species in a Naples chamber, red cabbage carried the most anthocyanin of the six (Izzo et al., 2023). That is measured colour. It is not a claim about what the colour does in a body.
One more thing about that colour, because the internet says the seedling beats the head. On dry weight, a market red cabbage head measured nearly three times the anthocyanin of a seven-day seedling, 33.4 against 12.4 µmol per g, while the seedling carried about twice the glucosinolates (Huang et al., 2016). Per gram, the head is the more purple thing.
What does the research say about cabbage microgreens and health?
Less than the headlines say, and it is worth knowing exactly how much. Two studies fed red cabbage microgreens to mice: sixty mice on a high-fat chow with 1.09 per cent freeze-dried microgreen powder for eight weeks, and forty more in a follow-up (Huang et al., 2016; Wu et al., 2023). The mice on the powder measured less LDL in their blood and gained less weight than the mice without it. Those are mouse results, and nobody has repeated them in a person.
One trial has fed cabbage microgreens to people. In Colorado, twenty-four adults aged forty-five to seventy ate about two cups a day, roughly thirty grams, for two weeks (Lee et al., 2025). They kept to it on ninety-four days in a hundred, their stomachs did not object, and their blood pressure did not move. No cholesterol or blood sugar measure was taken. The question that study asked was whether people would keep eating them, and they did.
So cabbage microgreens nutrition supports one sentence about health and no more: this is a vegetable with a measured vitamin C, vitamin K and calcium record that people ate daily for a fortnight without trouble. Claims about cancer, ulcers, Crohn’s disease or “vitamin U” belong to mature cabbage folklore, and no microgreen study of any kind supports them.
How do you grow cabbage microgreens?
Cabbage is one of the easier brassicas to grow as a microgreen, and how you grow it is half of cabbage microgreens nutrition. The seed needs no soak, the Brazilian plant-factory trial kept its trays dark for three days after sowing before moving them into light, and the published trials cut it between seven and twenty days depending on how big a leaf they wanted (Di Gioia et al., 2023; Fabek Uher et al., 2023). One plant-factory study cut at seven and nine days after sowing and got 6.8 and 8.1 kg per square metre, so two extra days bought about a fifth more weight (Yañez Medelo et al., 2025). The rooms were not exotic: the Ontario chamber ran at 21°C (69.8°F) by day and 17°C (62.6°F) at night, and the Florida greenhouse averaged 25.4°C (77.7°F) (Jones-Baumgardt et al., 2021; Di Gioia et al., 2023).
Two choices change what ends up in the leaf. Light is the first: under LEDs, red cabbage laid down more vitamin C and more than twice the anthocyanin at 500 µmol than at 100 (Jones-Baumgardt et al., 2021). Feed is the second, and it cuts the other way. On peat with a weak feed, nitrate was not detectable; on fed fibre under LEDs it read 440 to 720 mg per kg; on fed felt mats it landed in the study’s highest class (El-Nakhel et al., 2021; Ying et al., 2021; Di Gioia et al., 2023). What you feed is what you sell.
On safety, the May 2026 Canadian E. coli recalls traced to one lot of broccoli seed, not cabbage, but it is the same family and the same tray, so buy seed from a supplier who tests it. The site’s own post on what caused the 2026 Canadian microgreens recall walks through the seed lot and the timeline. The seeding rate, cover time and watering schedule I use are in the cabbage guide; this section is what the trials measured, not the tray-by-tray protocol.
What do cabbage microgreens taste like, and how do you use them?
Mild cabbage up front, then a peppery finish, and a purple stem that still crunches. That is not just my palate, and taste is the part of cabbage microgreens nutrition no table can carry. Ninety-nine consumers in Colorado scored red cabbage microgreens on nine-point scales, and they put its heat right in the middle at 5.3 to 5.5, second only to arugula among six species, with sweetness down at 2.9 to 3.5 (Michell et al., 2020). The same panel scored its looks at 8.5, top three of the six, and named it with broccoli and pea for overall acceptability.
Use it raw and last. Over eggs, where the stems stay crisp on a warm plate. Into a taco or a fish sandwich in place of shredded cabbage. Through a grain bowl at the end, for colour and bite, or next to something sharp on a cheese board. It goes into a juice too; my summer glass is cabbage microgreens with kiwi, and cabbage with kale when I want it greener. What it will not do is survive a pan. Heat takes the crunch and most of the colour, so it is a garnish, not a cooking green.
If you want to pair it more deliberately, the microgreens flavor pairing guide puts cabbage beside the crops that share its bite and the ones that soften it.
How do you store cabbage microgreens?
Cold and dry, and soon, because cabbage microgreens nutrition is mostly water. A cabbage seedling is more than nine parts water in ten, and water sitting on the leaf is what turns a bag limp, so keep it unwashed in a closed container in the fridge and rinse it the moment you use it. Buy less, more often, and eat it while the stems still snap.
Nobody has published a storage trial on cabbage microgreens that I have read. Lettuce and mustard have shelf-life studies; this crop does not. So any day count you are given, including one from a grower, is that grower’s own test in their own packaging, and you should ask which. Freezing kills the crunch, which is fine for a smoothie and wrong for a plate. Pickling in a plain vinegar brine works the same way it does for the head.
Wrap-up: cabbage microgreens nutrition
Cabbage microgreens nutrition comes down to one honest ranking and a lot of moving numbers. Red cabbage came first of twenty-five for vitamin C in the survey that started this field, and a twenty-gram handful is a good source on the lowest figure any laboratory has read since. It is not an iron crop, the head out-colours it per gram, and the only human trial asked whether people would keep eating it. They did.
Cabbage is one crop in a larger picture. Every crop in the Variety Library is held to the same standard of evidence, with its losing rows printed next to its winning ones, so you can see where cabbage sits against the rest.
The cabbage evidence page
Every number on this page, plus the ones that did not survive checking. The measured record and the six answers a stall gets asked, in one place.
Cabbage microgreens nutrition: frequently asked questions
Are cabbage microgreens the same as cabbage sprouts?
No, and cabbage microgreens nutrition figures do not transfer to sprouts. A sprout is germinated in the dark, warm and wet, for a few days and eaten whole, root and seed included. A microgreen grows in light in a medium for one to three weeks and is cut above the root. The difference matters for food safety, because the sprout’s growing conditions are the ones pathogens like.
Do cabbage microgreens regrow after you cut them?
Not in any useful way. The cut removes the seed leaves and the growing point sits at or below the cut line, so a second flush is thin and slow if it comes at all. Compost the mat and sow a fresh tray; ten days later you are back where you started.
Can Chinese cabbage microgreens stand in for cabbage microgreens?
Only in the kitchen. Bok choy, napa and the rest of the Chinese cabbages belong to Brassica rapa, not to head cabbage, and the thirty-variety survey read Chinese cabbage at 37.8 mg of vitamin C against 55.8 for red cabbage from the same greenhouse (Xiao et al., 2019). It is its own crop with its own record.
How much is a serving of cabbage microgreens?
Nutrient figures are printed per 100 g, and nobody eats that much in one sitting. A generous handful is about 20 g, which is the serving this site uses for every crop. On that handful the 2012 vitamin C figure works out at about a third of a day’s worth, and the lowest laboratory figure at about a tenth.
Is it safe to eat cabbage microgreens every day?
The one trial that tried it found no problem. Twenty-four adults ate about thirty grams a day for two weeks and reported no stomach trouble (Lee et al., 2025). Two weeks is not two years, and the trial was not built to find anything subtle, so think of it as a vegetable you can eat daily rather than a supplement you should.
Why does the vitamin C figure for cabbage microgreens vary so much between sources?
Because cabbage microgreens nutrition varies that much between farms. The USDA group that read 147 mg in 2012 read 55.8 mg in 2019 on a second grower in the same area, same method, and wrote that the difference was growing conditions and handling (Xiao et al., 2019). Any site quoting one figure as a property of the crop is quoting one farm.
This information is educational and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Talk with your physician before making significant changes to your diet or before using microgreens to address a health concern.
References
Dhaka, A. S., Dikshit, H. K., Mishra, G. P., Tontang, M. T., Thimmegowda, V., Aski, M., Meena, N. L., Kumar, R. R., Ramesh, S. V., Narwal, S., Gupta, S., Nair, R. M., & Praveen, S. (2023). Evaluation of growth conditions, antioxidant potential, and sensory attributes of six diverse microgreens species. Agriculture, 13(3), 676. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13030676
Di Gioia, F., Hong, J. C., Pisani, C., Petropoulos, S. A., Bai, J., & Rosskopf, E. N. (2023). Yield performance, mineral profile, and nitrate content in a selection of seventeen microgreens species. Frontiers in Plant Science, 14, 1220691. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2023.1220691
El-Nakhel, C., Pannico, A., Graziani, G., Kyriacou, M. C., Gaspari, A., Ritieni, A., De Pascale, S., & Rouphael, Y. (2021). Nutrient supplementation configures the bioactive profile and production characteristics of three Brassica microgreens species grown in peat-based media. Agronomy, 11(2), 346. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11020346
Fabek Uher, S., Radman, S., Opačić, N., Dujmović, M., Benko, B., Lagundžija, D., Mijić, V., Prša, L., Babac, S., & Šic Žlabur, J. (2023). Alfalfa, cabbage, beet and fennel microgreens in floating hydroponics: Perspective nutritious food? Plants, 12(11), 2098. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12112098
Huang, H., Jiang, X., Xiao, Z., Yu, L., Pham, Q., Sun, J., Chen, P., Yokoyama, W., Yu, L. L., Luo, Y. S., & Wang, T. T. Y. (2016). Red cabbage microgreens lower circulating low-density lipoprotein (LDL), liver cholesterol, and inflammatory cytokines in mice fed a high-fat diet. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 64(48), 9161–9171. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.6b03805 (a mouse study)
Izzo, L. G., El Nakhel, C., Rouphael, Y., Proietti, S., Paglialunga, G., Moscatello, S., Battistelli, A., Iovane, M., Romano, L. E., De Pascale, S., & Aronne, G. (2023). Applying productivity and phytonutrient profile criteria in modelling species selection of microgreens as space crops for astronaut consumption. Frontiers in Plant Science, 14, 1210566. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2023.1210566
Jones-Baumgardt, C., Ying, Q., Zheng, Y., & Bozzo, G. G. (2021). The growth and morphology of microgreens is associated with modified ascorbate and anthocyanin profiles in response to the intensity of sole-source light-emitting diodes. Canadian Journal of Plant Science, 101(2), 212–228. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjps-2020-0060
Kamal, K. Y., Khodaeiaminjan, M., El-Tantawy, A. A., Moneim, D. A., Salam, A. A., Ash-shormillesy, S. M. A. I., Attia, A., Ali, M. A. S., Herranz, R., El-Esawi, M. A., Nassrallah, A. A., & Ramadan, M. F. (2020). Evaluation of growth and nutritional value of Brassica microgreens grown under red, blue and green LEDs combinations. Physiologia Plantarum, 169(4), 625–638. https://doi.org/10.1111/ppl.13083
Lee, S. Y., Michell, K. A., Butler, M. M., Smith, B. T., Woolf, E. K., Holmes, S. C., Grabos, L. E., Vazquez, A. R., Isweiri, H., Bunning, M., Uchanski, M. E., Rao, S., Newman, S. E., Weir, T. L., & Johnson, S. A. (2025). Feasibility and tolerability of daily microgreen consumption in healthy middle-aged/older adults: A randomized, crossover, controlled trial. Nutrients, 17(3), 467. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu17030467
Michell, K. A., Isweiri, H., Newman, S. E., Bunning, M., Bellows, L. L., Dinges, M. M., Grabos, L. E., Rao, S., Foster, M. T., Heuberger, A. L., Prenni, J. E., Thompson, H. J., Uchanski, M. E., Weir, T. L., & Johnson, S. A. (2020). Microgreens: Consumer sensory perception and acceptance of an emerging functional food crop. Journal of Food Science, 85(4), 926–935. https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.15075
Wu, Y., Pham, Q., Wang, Y., Huang, H., Jiang, X., Li, R. W., Yu, L., Luo, Y., Wang, J., & Wang, T. T. Y. (2023). Red cabbage microgreen modulation of gut microbiota is associated with attenuation of diet-induced obesity risk factors in a mouse model. Food & Function, 14, 6654–6665. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3fo01249b (a mouse study)
Xiao, Z., Lester, G. E., Luo, Y., & Wang, Q. (2012). Assessment of vitamin and carotenoid concentrations of emerging food products: Edible microgreens. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 60(31), 7644–7651. https://doi.org/10.1021/jf300459b
Xiao, Z., Codling, E. E., Luo, Y., Nou, X., Lester, G. E., & Wang, Q. (2016). Microgreens of Brassicaceae: Mineral composition and content of 30 varieties. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, 49, 87–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2016.04.006
Xiao, Z., Rausch, S., Luo, Y., Sun, J., Yu, L., Wang, Q., Chen, P., Yu, L., & Stommel, J. R. (2019). Microgreens of Brassicaceae: Genetic diversity of phytochemical concentrations and antioxidant capacity. LWT, 101, 731–737. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lwt.2018.10.076
Yañez Medelo, M. J., Alves, T. N., Ribera, L. M., Silva, L. N. C., Carvalho, R. F., Calori, A. H., & Cecílio Filho, A. B. (2025). Harvest time, photoperiod and white light irradiance on yield of red cabbage microgreens in plant factory. Chilean Journal of Agricultural Research, 85(2), 181–192. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-58392025000200181
Ying, Q., Jones-Baumgardt, C., Zheng, Y., & Bozzo, G. (2021). The proportion of blue light from light-emitting diodes alters microgreen phytochemical profiles in a species-specific manner. HortScience, 56(1), 13–20. https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTSCI15371-20
