What Is Fennel and How Do You Cook It?

It’s always fun finding out what certain foods are. Especially if you’ve been eating them for years. How many times have you cooked a chicken piccata and wondered, what are capers? Or when you started cooking Middle Eastern recipes and wondered, what is za’atar?

The same might go for the celery and dill-looking hybrid you’ve seen listed in ingredients for soups and salads: what is fennel? It’s not celery or dill, but surely you’ve thought it looked like it was in the same family. In reality, fennel is like a cousin to celery, carrots, parsnips and parsley, with a bigger body and a much more pronounced flavor profile.

What is fennel?

Ripe fennel bulbs and dry seeds in bowl on grey wooden table

Fennel is a perennial herb that loves to spread in the garden. It’s a favorite of bees and pollinators as much as chefs. Part of fennel’s charm is that almost every part of it is usable, and each part offers a very different texture.

There’s the bulb, with its celery-like ribs; the fronds, used as seasoning like dill; and the fennel flowers, which produce fennel pollen, a gentle yellow powder with a slight honeyed sweetness. Finally, there are the fennel seeds, a mainstay in Chinese five spice and foods like turkey sausage patties and vegetable soup.

What does fennel taste like?

Fennel has a licorice taste that permeates every part of the plant. The anise flavoring is far more present in raw fennel, particularly the bulb and the seeds. As fennel cooks, the strength of the flavor mellows out and, like the vegetable itself, becomes softer.

How to Cut Fennel

To start, cut the stalks away from the bulb. Slice the core in half vertically, and carefully cut out the hard heart of the bulb on both sides. Peel away any imperfect outer leaves carefully.

Handle the rest of the bulb multiple ways: You can slice it the short way, resulting in half rounds. You can slice it the long way, which will result in long planks of fennel that can be easily layered, like eggplant. Because of its resiliency, you can also just chop the fennel to your desired size.

Fennel stalks tend to be tough and are best used for flavoring rather than cooking. Chop off the fronds and use as instructed via the recipe you’re following. For instance, you can use chopped raw fennel frond as a garnish, like you’d use sprigs of dill. The stalks are frequently used for making gravlax, a type of cured salmon.

Fennel pollen is collected while the plant is growing, by dusting flower heads into a container to collect the precious yellow clouds. You can then use the pollen to flavor chicken and vegetable dishes. Flowers from the herb that are allowed to keep growing produce seeds, and those are easily harvested by simply pulling them off the plant in fall.

How to Cook Fennel

Raw Fennel

Fresh fennel sliced

Fennel, just shaved or sliced thin, is remarkable in salads (like this citrus fennel salad or fennel-jicama salad). Consider shaved fennel and Parmesan drizzled with olive oil and salt as an alternative to a beef carpaccio. In any application you’d add shaved raw beets, fennel could be substituted.

Due to its bite, it’s great in a slaw cut a little more generously. Create matchsticks with fennel for a spicy addition to an apple or radish slaw. Consider it an alternative for celery here.

Sauteed Fennel

Fresh fennel slices are fried in butter in a cooking pan on a black stove, preparation for an healthy vegetarian meal, selected focus

If you give fennel a kiss of heat and fat, either with butter or oil, it softens the stalk or bulb just enough to be crunchy and bright without being chewy. Sauteed fennel in stir-fry can replace or augment your celery, or it can stand alone as a side, like this fennel spinach saute.

Braised Fennel

When you cook the fennel generously, either in broth or butter or some other fat, it softens to the point of no resistance. It becomes creamy and silken and can be a healthful alternative to a gratin.

Substitutes for Fennel

Celery: To produce the same crunch as fennel, the most obvious choices are celery and celery root. While lacking the same distinct flavor, celery has the same structure and water content.
Anise: Anise seed has a much sharper licorice taste but can be used as a substitute for fennel seed, so long as you take care with quantity. You don’t want to overwhelm the recipe with the more intense flavor!
Caraway seed: Although a different flavor profile, caraway seed has the same kind of strong flavor, seed size and bite as fennel seeds and is often used in the same kinds of recipes.
Onion and artichoke: These are both options when you need a last minute replacement for fennel. Raw artichoke has a similar bite and bitterness, though it’s more pronounced. Onion is sharper but, once cooked, has a very similar texture and ability to mellow.

Fennel Recipes

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Roasted Carrots & FennelThis addictive fennel recipe is a fresh take on one of my mother's standard wintertime dishes. I usually add more carrotsas many as the pans will hold. Lily Julow, Lawrenceville, Georgia

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