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I still remember standing in a specialty grocer’s produce aisle, trying to work out which tray of microgreens was worth the money.
A clerk pointed me at the cilantro. I bought it, took it home, and went looking for what was in it. What I found was the grown herb’s nutrition record wearing a new label.
Nearly every nutrition table published for cilantro microgreens is the mature coriander leaf’s entry from the USDA database, relabeled. That was true of the table that used to sit on this page, and correcting it is why this page has been rewritten.
So what follows is the seedling’s own record. Every figure that has been published for it, printed with the growing system it came from, plus an honest list of what nobody has measured yet.
Key Takeaway
Cilantro microgreens ranked first of twenty-five species tested for lutein and zeaxanthin, at 10.1 mg per 100 g fresh weight (Xiao et al., 2012). The same study ranked them twenty-first of twenty-five for vitamin C. No human trial on eating them has ever been published.
Below: what a cilantro microgreen actually is, every figure published for it, how the seedling measures up against the grown herb on your counter, and the questions the research has not answered.
The cilantro evidence page
Every figure on this page with the growing conditions attached, plus the ones that did not survive checking. It includes the nitrate reading that moved fifty-four fold between two runs in the same room, and a plain list of what nobody has measured yet.
See the full cilantro evidence review
Educational information, not medical advice. Every figure is traced to a published table.
What are cilantro microgreens, and are they the same as coriander?
Skip through the grow-out above if you have never watched one. It shows the thing a photograph misses, which is how little the seedling resembles the herb sitting on your counter.
They are the same plant, cut young. Coriandrum sativum harvested at the seedling stage, usually somewhere between seven and twenty-one days after sowing, once the two seed leaves have opened and the first true leaf is showing.
The naming trips people up more than the plant does. In the United States, cilantro means the leaves and coriander means the seeds. Almost everywhere else the whole plant is coriander. Sellers use micro cilantro, cilantro microgreens and coriander microgreens for the same thing.
A cilantro microgreen does not look like a small cilantro plant. Its two cotyledons are long, narrow and strap-shaped, which no other crop in this library produces. The first true leaf is broad and three-lobed, closer to flat-leaf parsley than to the feathery leaf the grown plant makes later. Cilantro is one of more than thirty crops people grow this way at home.
The seed is a round ribbed husk holding two halves, and growers often crack it to speed germination. Some husks ride up on the seedling and get picked out at the sink.
Coriander itself is old. Desiccated fruits were found at Nahal Hemar cave in Israel, in a deposit whose calibrated radiocarbon runs from 8210 to 7300 cal BC (Solazzo et al., 2016). It appears in Linear B on the Knossos tablets around 1375 to 1300 BC (Melena, 1976). Nobody has recorded when anyone first ate it as a seedling.
What is actually in a cilantro microgreen?
Less than you have been told, and it depends heavily on how it was grown.
Two peer-reviewed trials have measured cilantro microgreens properly. Here is all of it.
Trial one. Twenty-five microgreen species bought from one commercial grower near San Diego, May to July 2011, grown in soil in an unheated greenhouse under daylight (Xiao et al., 2012). No cultivar, temperature or harvest age reported.
| Measured | Cilantro’s value | Where that sits |
|---|---|---|
| Lutein and zeaxanthin | 10.1 ± 0.3 mg / 100 g fresh | 1st of 25 |
| Violaxanthin | 7.7 ± 0.6 mg / 100 g fresh | 1st of 25, clear of the field |
| Beta-carotene | 11.7 ± 1.1 mg / 100 g fresh | 2nd of 25, behind red sorrel at 12.1 |
| Total ascorbic acid | 40.6 ± 2.4 mg / 100 g fresh | 21st of 25. Red cabbage led at 147.0 |
| Dry weight | 8.3 ± 0.1 % of fresh weight | The lightest reading in the record |
Trial two. Cultivar ‘Micro Splits’ grown on five different media under LED near Naples, cut at the second true leaf (Kyriacou et al., 2020). Letters mark statistical groups. Two rows sharing a letter could not be told apart.
| Measured | Cilantro’s value | Letter | Where that sits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dry matter | 13.59 ± 0.52 % | a | Highest of three species |
| Beta-carotene | 325.1 ± 38.1 mg / kg dry | a | Highest of three |
| Nitrate | 398.5 ± 80.0 mg / kg fresh | c | Lowest of three, which is the good end |
| Potassium | 15.60 mg / g dry | b | Middle of three |
| Total phenols | 15.25 mg / g dry | b | Middle of three |
| Calcium | 6.46 mg / g dry | c | Lowest of three |
| Fresh yield | 1.31 ± 0.14 kg / m² | c | Lowest of three |
That is the whole published record for cilantro microgreens. There is no vitamin K figure, no fiber figure, no folate figure and no calorie count, because nobody has measured them in the seedling.
The numbers you have seen everywhere belong to the grown herb. Here they are, honestly labeled, from the USDA record for raw coriander leaves. Read them as the mature plant, not the seedling.
| Nutrient | Amount | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|
| Vitamin K | 310 µg | 258% |
| Vitamin A, RAE | 337 µg | 37% |
| Vitamin C | 27 mg | 30% |
| Copper | 0.225 mg | 25% |
| Manganese | 0.426 mg | 19% |
| Folate | 62 µg | 16% |
| Riboflavin | 0.162 mg | 12% |
| Potassium | 521 mg | 11% |
| Fiber | 2.8 g | 10% |
| Iron | 1.77 mg | 10% |
Two figures often printed alongside these are dropped here on purpose. Beta-carotene and lutein plus zeaxanthin have no Daily Value under FDA labelling rules, so any percentage attached to them was made up.
What are the benefits of eating cilantro microgreens?
Two things hold up under scrutiny, and both are about pigments and taste rather than disease.
The carotenoid standing is the one finding two independent groups reached. Cilantro microgreens came first of twenty-five species for lutein and zeaxanthin in a Maryland study (Xiao et al., 2012). An Italian group later put them highest of three species for beta-carotene (Kyriacou et al., 2020). Two continents and two methods, pointing the same way. Lutein and zeaxanthin are the pigments that concentrate in the retina, and beta-carotene is one the body can convert to vitamin A.
The size of the effect does not travel the way the ranking does. Converted at trial two’s own dry matter, its beta-carotene works out near 4.4 mg per 100 g fresh, against trial one’s 11.7. That is a 2.6-fold gap between two laboratories growing the same crop. The rank survives. The number depends on the grower.
People like eating them. A panel of fifty-four tasters scored twelve microgreen species (Caracciolo et al., 2020). Coriander took the joint highest overall rating at 8.1 out of 15, inside a top statistical band of seven species. It also took the highest appearance rating of all twelve. Its bitterness and astringency sat in the lowest group, which is unusual for a strongly aromatic green.
The seedling also carries more flavonoids than the grown leaf, in both water and ethanol extracts (Dhakshayani & Priya, 2022).
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.
Is micro cilantro better for you than regular cilantro?
On some things yes, on the one people care about most, no.
One study grew coriander microgreens and mature coriander leaves from the same sowing under the same conditions, then measured both (Dhakshayani & Priya, 2022). That side-by-side design is rare, and it is the only honest way to answer this.
The seedling won on flavonoids by a wide margin, 119.43 against 18.58 mg quercetin equivalents per gram in the water extract. It won on phenols in the ethanol extract, 116.78 against 72.23. In water the result flipped and the mature leaf came out ahead at 107.26 against 98.25, so the solvent matters and anyone quoting a phenol result should say which one they used.
Vitamin C went the other way, and not narrowly. The mature leaf carried 77.68 mg per 100 g against the microgreen’s 18.56, roughly four times as much. Worth knowing that microgreens hold more water than a sixty-day leaf, which tilts a fresh-weight comparison against the seedling before anyone measures anything. The gap is large enough to survive that.
The seedling-against-mature question comes up for every crop in this library, and the answer is not the same one twice. For cilantro microgreens the fair summary is a pigment and flavonoid gain, a vitamin C loss, and a flavor that is more concentrated per gram.
How do you use cilantro microgreens in the kitchen?
Raw, and added late. Heat drives off the aldehydes that give cilantro microgreens their smell, so anything cooked loses most of what you paid for.
Five dishes that work:
- Cilantro lime shrimp. Scatter over at the table, not in the pan.
- Green smoothie. Banana, mango and baby spinach carry the flavor well.
- Coleslaw. The seedling’s sharper edge cuts through the mayonnaise.
- Shrimp ceviche. Already a raw dish, so nothing is lost.
- Black bean and grilled corn salad. The one where people notice the difference.
Swap them in wherever a recipe calls for chopped cilantro, using roughly half by volume. The panel data backs this up: coriander scored the strongest aroma intensity of twelve species, so a little goes further than the grown herb does.
Microgreens are a raw food, and raw food carries handling risk worth understanding. Rinse them and drain well, then keep them cold.
Worth naming, since it was in the news this summer. A Salmonella Javiana outbreak running from June into July 2026 sickened 345 people across 27 states, and cilantro was one of the ingredients investigators looked at. CDC traced the source to jalapeño peppers from Sinaloa, not cilantro. Fresh produce eaten raw is where these outbreaks happen, which is an argument for buying from a grower you can ask questions of.
Wrap-up: what cilantro microgreens nutrition actually shows
Cilantro microgreens are a pigment crop and a flavor crop. They came first of twenty-five for lutein and zeaxanthin, and joint best-liked of twelve on a taste panel. They also carry more flavonoids than the grown herb.
They are not a vitamin C crop, and the grown leaf beats them roughly four to one on it. Every mineral figure published for them moves by a factor of five or more depending on how they were grown, which is why this page prints conditions beside every number.
Most of what circulates about this crop is the mature herb’s record with a new name on it. Cilantro is one entry in a library where every crop gets the same treatment, figures traced to a published table or left out.
The cilantro evidence page
Every figure on this page with the growing conditions attached, plus the ones that did not survive checking. It includes the nitrate reading that moved fifty-four fold between two runs in the same room, and a plain list of what nobody has measured yet.
See the full cilantro evidence review
Educational information, not medical advice. Every figure is traced to a published table.
Cilantro microgreens: frequently asked questions
Is cilantro high in vitamin K?
The grown herb is, at 310 µg per 100 g, which is 258% of the Daily Value. Nobody has measured vitamin K in the microgreen, so the figure you see attached to seedlings is borrowed from the mature leaf. A realistic pinch of either is a few grams, not 100.
How much fiber is in cilantro?
Mature coriander leaves carry 2.8 g per 100 g, which is 10% of the Daily Value. No published study has measured fiber in the microgreen. Since a garnish portion is closer to 10 g, the practical contribution from either form is about 1% of a day’s fiber.
Do cilantro microgreens taste soapy to some people?
Some people do report it, and a genetic variant near a cluster of olfactory receptor genes is associated with it (Eriksson et al., 2012). The effect is small, explaining about 0.5% of the variation, and 13% of that study’s participants reported the soapy taste. All of that work was done on the grown herb, and nobody has tested whether it holds at the seedling stage.
How long do cilantro microgreens keep after harvest?
Nobody knows, because no shelf life or postharvest study of this crop has been published. Other microgreens have them and cilantro does not. Anyone quoting you a keeping figure for cilantro is borrowing it from a different plant, so treat them like any tender herb and use them within a few days.
Is cilantro a superfood?
It is not a regulated term, and it does not describe anything measurable. What the record shows for cilantro microgreens is a top ranking on two pigments out of twenty-five species tested, and a bottom-quarter ranking on vitamin C in the same study. Both are true at once, which is roughly what the word is designed to hide.
Is cilantro good for your skin?
No study has tested that in either form, and claims that it treats skin conditions come from traditional use rather than trial data. The grown herb does supply vitamin C, which the body uses in collagen synthesis. That is a description of a nutrient’s role, not evidence that eating cilantro changes anyone’s skin.
References
- Caracciolo, F., El-Nakhel, C., Raimondo, M., Kyriacou, M. C., Cembalo, L., De Pascale, S., & Rouphael, Y. (2020). Sensory attributes and consumer acceptability of 12 microgreens species. Agronomy, 10(7), 1043. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10071043
- Choe, U., Yu, L. L., & Wang, T. T. Y. (2018). The science behind microgreens as an exciting new food for the 21st century. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 66(44), 11519–11530. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.8b03096
- Dhakshayani, G. M., & Priya, S. J. (2022). A comparative study of phytochemical, antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, and antidiabetic potential of coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.): Microgreen and mature plant. Foods and Raw Materials, 10(2), 283–294. https://doi.org/10.21603/2308-4057-2022-2-539
- Eriksson, N., Wu, S., Do, C. B., Kiefer, A. K., Tung, J. Y., Mountain, J. L., Hinds, D. A., & Francke, U. (2012). A genetic variant near olfactory receptor genes influences cilantro preference. Flavour, 1, 22. https://doi.org/10.1186/2044-7248-1-22
- Kyriacou, M. C., El-Nakhel, C., Pannico, A., Graziani, G., Soteriou, G. A., Giordano, M., Palladino, M., Ritieni, A., De Pascale, S., & Rouphael, Y. (2020). Phenolic constitution, phytochemical and macronutrient content in three species of microgreens as modulated by natural fiber and synthetic substrates. Antioxidants, 9(3), 252. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox9030252
- Melena, J. L. (1976). Coriander on the Knossos tablets. Minos, 15, 133–163.
- Solazzo, C., Courel, B., Connan, J., van Dongen, B. E., Barden, H., Penkman, K., Taylor, S., Demarchi, B., Adam, P., Schaeffer, P., Nissenbaum, A., Bar-Yosef, O., & Buckley, M. (2016). Identification of the earliest collagen- and plant-based coatings from Neolithic artefacts (Nahal Hemar cave, Israel). Scientific Reports, 6, 31053. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep31053
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. (2019). FoodData Central, FDC ID 169997: Coriander (cilantro) leaves, raw. SR Legacy. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/169997
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2024). Nutrition labeling of food, 21 CFR 101.9. Daily Values for adults and children four or more years of age.
- 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
