There's a vegetable named after dinosaurs! Find out why dinosaur kale got its name, compare it to real fossil dinosaur skin, learn what plant-eating dinosaurs really ate, and try some roar-some kale snacks.
Quick Answer
Dinosaur kale is a kind of kale from Italy, also called Lacinato, Tuscan kale or cavolo nero. It gets its name from its long, dark leaves covered in little bumps that look like scaly dinosaur skin. Dinosaurs never actually ate it (it's much too new!), but it's a tasty, healthy green that kids can eat raw, baked into crunchy chips or blended into smoothies.
Run your finger along a leaf of dinosaur kale and you'll feel lots of little bumps and wrinkles. Gardeners call this kind of leaf savoyed. To many people, the bumpy surface looks just like the pebbly, scaly skin of a dinosaur or a lizard.
Here's the fun part: we know what some dinosaur skin really looked like! When a few dinosaurs were buried very quickly, the pattern of their skin was pressed into the mud and turned to stone. Fossil skin from the duck-billed Edmontosaurus is covered in small, rounded scales, with bigger bumps here and there. Compare them side by side:
If you can't find “dinosaur kale” at the store, look for one of its other names. They're all the same plant:
Dinosaur kale
for its bumpy, scaly-looking leaves
Lacinato kale
the name on many seed packets
Tuscan kale
after Tuscany, the part of Italy it comes from
Cavolo nero
Italian for “black cabbage”
Black kale
for its very dark blue-green color
Palm kale
because a tall plant looks like a little palm tree
It's a kind of cabbage
Kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts are all the same plant species! Farmers bred them, over thousands of years, from wild cabbage that grows on seaside cliffs in Europe.
Hundreds of years old
Dinosaur kale has been grown in Tuscany, Italy, for centuries. Italian cooks still put it in a famous bean and bread soup called ribollita.
Frost makes it sweeter
When nights turn frosty, the plant turns some of its starch into sugar, which works like antifreeze. Many gardeners say kale tastes best after the first frost.
It grows like a tree
Gardeners pick the bottom leaves and leave the top growing. Over a season the stem gets tall and bare, with a tuft of leaves on top, like a tiny palm tree.
Packed with vitamins
Dark leafy greens like dinosaur kale give you vitamins K, A and C, plus fiber, calcium and other good stuff for growing bodies.
Almost black
Its leaves are so dark blue-green that Italians call it “black cabbage.” A waxy coat gives them a dusty, blue-gray shine.
Sorry, dinosaurs: no kale for you! Kale is a kind of cabbage that people grew and changed on their farms, bit by bit, over the last few thousand years. The last big dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago, long before any farms or vegetables existed.
So what did plant-eaters like Triceratops, Stegosaurus and the giant long-neck dinosaurs munch on? Scientists find clues in fossil plants, in the shape of dinosaur teeth, and even in fossil dinosaur poop (called coprolites). Here is a dinosaur salad bar:
There was almost no grass for most of the dinosaur age, but tiny bits of grass found in fossil poop from India show that some late long-neck dinosaurs did nibble it.
Yes! Like other dark leafy greens, dinosaur kale is full of vitamin K (helps cuts heal), vitamin A (helps eyes see in dim light) and vitamin C (helps fight off colds), plus fiber and calcium. It is more tender and milder than curly kale, which makes it a good first kale for kids.
Tips for parents
Crunchy Dino Scale Chips
Swamp Smoothie
Massaged Dino Salad
Hide It in Pasta or Soup
Dinosaur kale is one of the easiest vegetables for a family garden, and it looks amazing too:
Make it a dinosaur garden: tuck a few toy dinosaurs between the plants, or add a fern for a real Jurassic touch. Want more dinosaur fun? See our best dinosaur toys.
Because its long, dark leaves are covered in little bumps that look like the scaly, pebbly skin of a dinosaur or lizard. Fossil skin of dinosaurs like Edmontosaurus really does have a bumpy pattern a bit like a kale leaf.
No! Kale is a kind of cabbage that people bred from wild cabbage only a few thousand years ago, long after the dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago. Plant-eating dinosaurs ate ferns, conifers, cycads, horsetails, ginkgo and, later, early flowering plants.
Yes. Dinosaur kale, Lacinato kale, Tuscan kale, cavolo nero, black kale and palm kale are all names for the same Italian kale with long, dark, bumpy leaves.
Yes. Dinosaur kale is more tender and less bitter than curly kale, so it is nice raw in salads. Remove the tough middle stem, slice the leaves thinly and massage them with a little lemon juice and olive oil to make them softer.
Dark leafy greens like dinosaur kale give vitamins K, A and C, fiber and calcium. Kids often like it best as crispy kale chips or blended into a fruit smoothie. Serve small amounts at first and cut it into small pieces for little ones.
It tastes earthy, a little nutty and slightly sweet, and milder than curly kale. Cooking makes it softer and even milder, and frosty weather in the garden makes it sweeter.
Yes. It likes cool weather, sun or part shade and regular water. Plant it in early spring or late summer. Baby leaves are ready in about a month, and full-size leaves in about 2 to 3 months. Pick the bottom leaves first and the plant keeps growing.
Image credits (via Wikimedia Commons): dinosaur kale plants at the top of the page by Raffi Kojian, Gardenology.org (CC BY-SA 3.0); dinosaur kale leaf close-up by GearedBull (public domain); Edmontosaurus skin impression, Museum of the Rockies, by Tim Evanson (CC BY-SA 2.0); cycad at Kirstenbosch by Derek Keats (CC BY 2.0); kale chips by Kari Sullivan (CC BY 2.0). Images were cropped and resized for the web.
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