November Veggies 2025
Depending on your location, leaves are turning or falling, the air is crisp, and it’s time to protect oneself from Nor’easter weather. That means it’s time to pull out and serve some of the batch-cooked dishes from your freezer you made last month to possibly make room for Thanksgiving and holiday prep or use on those days when focusing on shopping or rushing to a ball practice or game night. Did you know home-cooked items can be frozen for up to two months without losing their texture, flavor, and color if wrapped and packed properly? Please refer to www.FoodSafety.gov for all food handling and storage information. Ingredients are too expensive to waste or be the cause of illness, especially during the holiday season.
NEW CROP-ONION VARIETIES!
“We eat with our eyes”, someone once said, and it is true. Color draws our attention and sends signals to our brains to imagine how yummy that veggie side, colorful fruit dish, roast, garnished beverage, or dessert will taste. Onions, for most savory recipes, add flavor, aroma, and can also add color and texture. Melissa’s offers a rainbow of colors as well as options for creativity and flavor… something appropriate for every recipe application.
PEARLS/BOILERS – Available with white, red or gold flesh, pearl and boiler onions are not just for holiday meals. They are generally available year-round and make every dish seem special with that added pop of color. Easy to peel and prep, both are mildly sharp and a bit sweet, making them classic with peas or mixed veggies, but are also fab jewels in salads, pickled sweet or vinegary as a condiment, skewered for cocktails or kabobs, braised with balsamic, or classically creamed (with a pinch of Melissa’s Crushed Red Pepper Flakes). Larger boilers are also handy for soups, stews, stuffed apples, or if you’re cooking for one-just the right amount for a recipe, leaving no peeled onion to store in the fridge.
PERFECT SWEET – Melissa’s signature Perfect Sweet onion is lower in sharp pyruvic acid, which makes everyone wince, thus yielding a sweeter profile when cooked. Perfect Sweets are good-sized onions for batch cooking, stuffings and casseroles, or soup recipes, caramelizing for steaks or quartering for soups and marinades. Oh! And don’t forget- scratch-made onion rings!!!
SHALLOTS – This allium is considered high-brow in the US because it is often used for fine dining recipes. But not at Melissa’s. Shallots have a nice balance of sweetness with a bit of bite, are just enough for a batch of Melissa’s Guacamole or Salsa Kit, or a recipe for pan sauces or scratch salad dressings. Try them sliced, floured, then fried for your own crispy casserole or hot dog topping.
LEEKS – Not really an onion, but from the lily family, this aromatic is flavorful yet mild. Fabulous simply braised with broth and served as a side, sliced into rounds, and folded into your top savory breads. The classic use is Potato Leek Soup or Vichyssoise. Wash this multi-layered stalk well to rid it of fine sand by pulling away layers, then run it through cold running water and spinning or blotting dry. Any leftover green tops may be washed and frozen to flavor broths or stock.
DRIED MUSHROOMS
Mushrooms are an ingredient most people do not detect in a dish unless they see the physical fungi. Then, all bets are off. Mushroom texture isn’t always favorable; most are a bit squishy and sometimes chewy when cooked, while others are crunchy. But the deep flavor mushrooms add to a dish can mean the difference between blah and ahh. Additionally, mushrooms add a meaty texture and ‘umami’ flavor in plant-based dishes as well as loads of nutrients to any dish.
Melissa’s offers a variety of dried mushrooms from omnipresent shiitake to rare morel, chanterelle, and lobster. We even offer Mushroom Medley, a mix of mushrooms to add to soups or steamed grains for variety in flavor and texture. Mushroom Medley is also perfect to grind in a spice grinder and make mushroom powder for addition to dishes, amping up flavor yet having no physical evidence of its presence. You’ll soon find Melissa’s Dried Mushrooms are an essential pantry item for Year-Round inclusion. Available year-round. Product Origin varies.
FRESH MUSHROOMS
And for those who love fresh mushrooms with their varied shapes and textures, we offer Gourmet Mushroom Sampler at a full 1.50 pounds, Protein Blend 6 oz. created to amp up flavor and texture in vegan bowls, tacos, and stir-fries, and Grilling Blend 6 oz. Three varieties that are hearty enough to put on a grill, plancha, hibachi, or sauté. All are fresh, cultivated mushrooms that simply need a light brushing or paper towel wiping off before prep and then cook or slice and serve for inclusion with green beans, mixed root veggies, soups, salads, grains, plant-based burgers, bowls, stuffings, braises, sauces, sammies, empanadas/won tons, and the list goes on… Available year-round. Product of USA.
PARSNIPS
Parsnips or parsley root? It’s so confusing because they look so much alike! Parsnips are readily available this time of year and generally are very top-heavy with a sudden taper to the root end. Their leaves, if still attached, are broader and less wispy than parsley or parsley root tops. This time of year, parsnips are available for so many dishes during the holiday season. Sweeter than a carrot and beige in color, parsnips taste like carrots and parsley combined. They are fabulous roasted and puréed as a mashed potato sub, added to other root veggies for stuffings and sides, steamed and puréed for soup or to thicken soup, or folded into muffins and quick breads. They pair well with any other vegetable and make a great addition to add volume and a bit of sweetness to bean dips and spreads. Parsnips are higher in carbs and calories than parsley root and are a source of potassium and dietary fiber. Available year-round. Product of USA.
PARSLEY ROOT
Parsley root is certainly NOT PARSNIP. Parsley roots look very much like petite, cream-colored carrots with leaves resembling wispy parsley tops. If placed side-by-side with parsnips, there is a marked difference. Parsley root taste is like celery root with parsley and is slightly sweet with a nutty, slightly bitter finish. They are a low-carb root veggie and contain Vitamins K and C. Parsley root, to farmers as well as consumers, is a test of patience as this root takes about six months to grow to harvest. Available through December. Product of USA.
SUNFLOWER CHOKES
Also known as Jerusalem Artichokes, sunchokes, or girasole, this crunchy, inulin-rich root for digestion has a nutty, slightly sweet profile and may be served raw or cooked. Preferred cooking methods are steaming and roasting to retain as many nutrients as possible, and, once washed, may be peeled/scraped with the side of a spoon, then tossed in lemon water to prevent oxidation. Pureé with veggie broth to make a silky cream soup or mashed side, roast with meats or proteins, slice and add to stir fry as a substitute for water chestnuts. Available now through May. Product of USA.
ORGANIC BABY SWEET POTATOES (YAMS)
Autumn dishes and feasts are not complete without sweet potatoes, aka yams. Sweet potatoes are of the morning glory family, while yams are of the lily family. All Melissa’s sweet potatoes are organic and available in cute little single-serve baby size, perfect for little ones and finger food grazing, or larger size for casseroles, soups, purées, and baking.
Select from an array of classic, orange-fleshed garnet and jewel, nutty cream-fleshed and red-skinned Japanese Murasaki, sweet Bonita with cream skin and flesh, or purple-skinned and dark, purple-fleshed Charleston Sweet potato. Select sweet potatoes that are heavy for their size, show no signs of mold, soft spots, or gashes. Store unwashed at room temperature up to one month in a well-ventilated area. Their skin is edible once scrubbed and cooked. Sweet potatoes may be steamed, boiled, fried, roasted, or puréed, and used for hashbrowns, blended into pancakes and waffles or baked goods, stuffed, cut into wedges, paired with sweet or savory spices, fruits, and proteins. Do NOT refrigerate. Available year-round. Product of USA.
RHUBARB
AKA pie plant in some parts of the U.S., rhubarb is crisp like celery, and tart with a beautiful jewel-toned pink-red stalk. It has no seed and, therefore, is botanically a vegetable. Rhubarb’s toxic leaves are never sold with the stalk. This vegetable, though most often prepared as a dessert, can be consumed raw or cooked. Try thin slices in salads for a pinch of tart, roasted pieces with root veg or stuffings, sautéed with greens such as kale, chard, baby bok choy or choy sum, or stewed with apple and cherry juice or with strawberries for preserves or pie fillings. For proteins, rhubarb’s tart flavor pairs well with rich meals, animal and vegan proteins such as game, duck, turkey, dairy, grains, and pulses. Available year-round. Currently, product of the Netherlands.
ORGANIC VEGGIE SWEET PEPPERS
These crunchy, two-bite sweet peppers are chock full of minerals and vitamins, and grow in bright hues of vermillion, red, stop light yellow, and bright orange. Perfect for crudité or grazing boards served raw or quick charred, or grilled. Often found to be more convenient and less wasteful when preparing recipes for one or two persons, consume them raw or cooked, and served as they are, stuffed with grains or proteins as an apple, cut into rounds for salads or sides, used as a bright garnish for drinks, halved and seeded as a scooper for hot or cold dips, slivered for a sammie. Available Year-Round. USA or Mexico. All of Melissa’s Organic items are USDA Certified Organic.
