What are non-starchy vegetables? A complete list and the borderline cases

Non-starchy vegetables are vegetables that carry fewer than about 5 grams of digestible carbohydrate per 100 grams and get most of their weight from water and fiber rather than stored starch. Leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, green beans, peppers, and mushrooms all fall into this group. The category exists mainly as a nutrition-education shorthand, used most often in diabetes meal planning, to separate vegetables you can eat in large volume from the ones that behave more like grains on a blood sugar chart.

What are starchy vegetables?

Starchy vegetables are the ones where starch, a stored carbohydrate made of long chains of glucose, makes up a large share of the vegetable’s dry weight. Potatoes, corn, peas, winter squash, and cassava are the standard examples. A boiled potato runs about 17 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams — cooked corn kernels run about 19 grams. Compare that to zucchini at roughly 3 grams per 100 grams and the split becomes obvious on your plate, not just on paper. Starchy vegetables aren’t inferior, they’re simply denser fuel, closer in composition to a grain than to a lettuce leaf.

Non starchy vegetables list

The list below groups the most common non-starchy vegetables by plant family, since that grouping also answers a few of the specific questions you may be asking: is cauliflower a starch, is cabbage a starch, is broccoli starchy.

Starchy vegetables list

The starchy category is shorter and more concentrated: potatoes (all varieties), sweet potatoes, corn, green peas, winter squash such as butternut and acorn, plantains, cassava, and taro. Green peas may surprise you, since they read as a fresh vegetable, but at about 14 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams cooked, they sit closer to corn than to green beans.

Is squash a starch?

It depends on the squash. Winter squashes (butternut, acorn, kabocha) are starchy, running 10 to 15 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams cooked. Summer squashes (zucchini, yellow squash) are non-starchy, at roughly 3 grams per 100 grams. Spaghetti squash sits in between but is usually counted non-starchy in clinical meal-planning lists, at about 7 grams per 100 grams cooked, because its flesh is mostly water and thin strands rather than dense flesh.

Are carrots starchy vegetables?

No, carrots are classified as non-starchy, at about 8 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams raw, most of it structural fiber and natural sugar rather than starch. They may read as “starchy” to you because they’re a root vegetable and roots get lumped in with potatoes by habit, not by composition. Beets and turnips get the same undeserved reputation for the same reason.

Is cauliflower a starch?

No. Cauliflower has about 5 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams raw and is one of the standard low-starch, low-carbohydrate vegetables used to replace rice and mashed potatoes in lower-carbohydrate cooking, precisely because its starch content is so low.

Is cabbage a starch?

No, cabbage is non-starchy, at roughly 6 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams raw, nearly half of that fiber. It belongs to the same cruciferous family as broccoli and Brussels sprouts, and shares their low-starch profile.

Are green beans a starchy vegetable?

No. Green beans (snap beans, string beans) are non-starchy at about 7 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams cooked. They’re a pod vegetable eaten before the seeds mature and dry, which is what keeps their starch content low; dried mature beans, like kidney or black beans, are a completely different, starchy food.

Where the simple list breaks down

The non-starchy versus starchy split is a nutrition-education tool, not a botanical law, and it fails in a few predictable places. Green peas and lima beans look like “regular vegetables” but are counted as starchy because of their carbohydrate density. Corn is technically a grain crop eaten as a vegetable, and gets sorted into the starchy list for the same reason. Spaghetti squash and beets sit near the boundary and different sources place them differently, one clinic’s chart calls beets non-starchy, another puts them with root starches, depending on where the carbohydrate cutoff is drawn. Portion size also breaks the rule: a cup of raw spinach is negligible carbohydrate, but three cups of cooked spinach, reduced down, delivers a meaningfully higher dose. The category describes a typical serving, not the vegetable itself, so it’s worth weighing what’s actually on your plate rather than trusting the label alone.

What the evidence says about non-starchy vegetables and health

Diets higher in non-starchy vegetables are associated with lower average blood glucose responses and higher fiber intake in observational studies, which is why diabetes nutrition guidelines recommend filling half the plate with them. That evidence is mostly correlational, drawn from food-frequency questionnaires rather than controlled feeding trials, and it can’t fully separate the effect of the vegetables themselves from the effect of eating a generally lower-carbohydrate, higher-fiber diet overall. No single vegetable, non-starchy or otherwise, has been shown to treat or reverse a diagnosed condition, and the category is a planning tool for carbohydrate counting, not a therapeutic claim you should rely on in place of medical advice.

Questions cooks ask about non-starchy vegetables

Is broccoli a starchy vegetable?

No. Broccoli is non-starchy, with about 7 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams cooked, over a third of it fiber.

Is zucchini a starchy vegetable?

No. Zucchini is one of the lowest-carbohydrate non-starchy vegetables, at roughly 3 grams per 100 grams raw, which is why you’ll often see it spiralized as a pasta substitute.

Are beets starchy?

Most clinical lists classify beets as non-starchy, at about 8 to 10 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams cooked, though a few sources group them with starchy roots because of their relatively higher sugar content compared to other non-starchy vegetables.

What is a non cruciferous vegetable?

Any non-starchy vegetable outside the cabbage family: tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, green beans, mushrooms, and peppers are all non-starchy and non-cruciferous, which matters mainly if you’re managing a thyroid condition and have been told to limit cruciferous intake specifically, not vegetables generally.

Can non-starchy vegetables be frozen or canned?

Yes, and the carbohydrate count barely changes; frozen broccoli and fresh broccoli are within a gram of each other per 100 grams. Canned versions run slightly higher in sodium unless labeled no-salt-added, so check the label if that matters to you.

Raw non-starchy vegetables keep 3 to 7 days refrigerated depending on the item, with leafy greens at the shorter end and roots like carrots and beets at the longer end. Chopped and prepped ahead in an airtight container, most last 4 to 5 days before texture starts to go, which makes them one of the few ingredients worth batch-prepping in your kitchen on a Sunday.