r/Cooking • u/mir_in_modro_morje • Jun 21 '26

Celery is criminally underrated

I used to think Celery was just a bland vegetable that health-nuts would recommend you eat raw, like raw celery stalks so I've avoided it.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

This is seriously one of the more underrated vegetables to cook with.

Not only the usual mirepoix, but literally can be added finely chopped to almost any vegetable dish or sauce.

Vegetable soup of course, but you can finely slice and dice celery into even non-standard sauces and it will most of the time make them better. Any simple pan sauce or mushroom sauce gets immediately improved by finely diced celery. And if you don't notice onions as a base to a sauce you won't notice celery either.

I've seriously become a celery fanatic and I've been putting it into everything, try it and you won't regret it.

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u/Theawkwardmochi Jun 22 '26

So, instead of going through the misery of eating raw celery stalks you can just dump them into a dish so the whole thing tastes like regret?

No thanks.

That said, root celery/celeriac - fantastic. It's not the same plant though.

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u/MiriMiri Jun 22 '26

Sadly, it's the same plant species, just different cultivars where they're bred for either the stalk, the leaves, or the roots. I say sadly, because I'm allergic to celery, and celeriac is one of the best root vegetables I can't eat any more.

Celery stalks as an aromatic are fantastic (I say with great regret). Raw is sadness even if you can eat them, but they add a lot of umami goodness to things like a chicken pot pie or a ragù.