Cauliflower Colors

Purple cauliflower is fabulous. So is green cauliflower and orange cauliflower.

No they aren’t fake, GMO or artificially dyed. Colorful cauliflower is natural and offers more nutrition than white cauliflower.

I love growing cauliflower and making delicious cauliflower recipes. While you commonly see white cauliflower at the grocery store, certain gourmet shops will offer other colors.

 Best Colorful Cauliflower Varieties

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Purple of Sicily

Green Cauliflower can sometimes be mistaken for Romanesco Broccoli

They are both in the same Brassica family, but they are different.

The Romanesco broccoli tends to curl and takes longer to grow. Green cauliflower looks rounded and exactly like white cauliflower, only it’s green! Verdi is a vibrant green choice from West Coast Seeds. If you’re looking for Romanesco Broccoli, you can buy them from Baker Creek Seeds.

Orange Cauliflower

One of the most common orange cauliflower varieties is called ‘Cheddar’. It doesn’t taste like the cheese, but it’s got that orange color.

Cheddar Orange Cauliflower from Johnny’s Seed

Perks of growing colorful cauliflowers in the home garden

One great thing about growing colorful cauliflower varieties is that they don’t need to be ‘blanched’. To become ‘white’ cauliflower heads need to be protected from the sunshine. The sunlight creates discoloration on a white cauliflower head making them creamy. Although there are some self-blanching cauliflower varieties (meaning the leaves will grow over the head), you often have to tie the leaves around your cauliflowers.

Because colorful cauliflowers don’t have to be perfectly white and out of sunlight, you don’t have to worry about them!

Have you grown purple, orange or green cauliflower before?

This summer I’m looking forward to growing more purple cauliflower, but also adding the cheddar this season.