Se llama verduras de hoja a aquellas plantas que cuentan con hojas comestibles, y a veces también peciolos y brotes. Aunque el término engloba a una amplia variedad de especies, la mayoría comparten características nutricionales y usos gastronómicos. Se conocen casi 1000 especies de plantas con hojas comestibles. La mayoría de ellas son plantas herbáceas efímeras como la lechuga y la espinaca. Algunas plantas leñosas cuyas hojas pueden comerse incluyen especies de Adansonia, árbol de angélica, Moringa, Morus y Toona. Las hojas de muchos pastos también son comestibles para los humanos, pero solo suelen consumirse en caso de hambruna. Algunos ejemplos son la alfalfa, el trébol y la mayoría de las gramíneas, incluyendo el trigo y la cebada. Estas plantas son a menudo mucho más prolíficas que las verduras de hoja tradicionales, pero la explotación de sus nutrientes es complicada, principalmente por su alto contenido en fibra. Este obstáculo puede salvarse con un mayor procesado, incluyendo el secado y la molienda, o el prensado y triturado para obtener su jugo.

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Leaf vegetables, also called potherbs, greens, vegetable greens, leafy greens, or salad greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by tender petioles and shoots. Although they come from a very wide variety of plants, most share a great deal with other leaf vegetables in nutrition and cooking methods. Nearly one thousand species of plants with edible leaves are known. Leaf vegetables most often come from short-lived herbaceous plants such as lettuce and spinach. Woody plants whose leaves can be eaten as leaf vegetables include Adansonia, Aralia, Moringa, Morus, and Toona species. The leaves of many fodder crops are also edible for humans, but usually only eaten under famine conditions. Examples include alfalfa, clover, and most grasses, including wheat and barley. These plants are often much more prolific than more traditional leaf vegetables, but exploitation of their rich nutrition is difficult, primarily because of their high fiber content. This obstacle can be overcome by further processing such as drying and grinding into powder or pulping and pressing for juice. Leaf vegetables contain many typical plant nutrients, but since they are photosynthetic tissues, their vitamin K levels in relation to those of other fruits and vegetables, as well as other types of foods, is particularly notable. The reason is that phylloquinone, the most common form of the vitamin, is directly involved in photosynthesis. This causes leaf vegetables to be the primary food class that interacts significantly with the anticoagulant pharmaceutical warfarin. \n* Fresh Gotukola (Centella asiatica) \n* Fresh Swiss chard \n* Fresh water spinach \n* Sabzi Khordan, an Iranian salad-like dish.

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