I never thought I’d have strong feelings about rainbow chard stems.
But here’s the thing—once you’ve spent an entire Sunday afternoon wrestling with those vibrantly colored stalks, trying to seperate the tender leaves from the fibrous, almost woody stems that take forever to cook down, you start to reconsider your entire approach to leafy greens. I used to just chop the whole thing together, stems and all, throwing everything into the pan and hoping for the best. The leaves would turn to mush while the stems remained stubbornly crunchy, and I’d stand there at the stove, exhausted and vaguely annoyed at a vegetable. Turns out, there’s actually a whole category of kitchen tools designed specifically for this problem—chard strippers, or stem strippers, or whatever you want to call them—and they’ve been around for maybe a decade, give or take, quietly solving a problem most home cooks didn’t realize had a dedicated solution.
The physics of why rainbow chard is so annoying to prep makes sense once you think about it. The stems—those gorgeous magenta, yellow, and orange stalks—are basically structural support for massive leaves, and they’re packed with cellulose and fiber that takes significantly longer to break down under heat than the delicate leaf tissue. You’re essentially dealing with two different vegetables masquerading as one.
Why a specialized tool actually changes the game (and why I was skeptical at first)
I guess I was resistant to buying yet another single-purpose kitchen gadget. My drawer is already stuffed with avocado slicers and garlic presses I barely use, and the idea of a tool that only strips chard stems seemed, honestly, ridiculous. But the traditional methods—running a knife along each side of the stem, or trying to pinch and pull the leaf away with your fingers—are tedious when you’re processing a whole bunch of chard, which is usually how it comes from the farmers market or the grocery store. A chard stripper, which looks sort of like a pair of tongs with a hole in the middle or sometimes like a specialized blade with a V-shaped notch, lets you pull the stem through in one smooth motion, and the leaves just—well, they just come off. The whole process takes maybe thirty seconds per bunch instead of five or six minutes of careful knife work.
Wait—maybe this sounds trivial.
But when you’re trying to make chard stems and leaves work in the same dish, which is absolutely possible and actually delicious, you need them prepped seperately so you can add the stems to the pan first, let them cook for maybe eight to ten minutes until they start to soften, and then add the leaves for just a minute or two at the end. I’ve seen recipes that call for pickling the stems separately or roasting them like you would asparagus, which makes sense when you consider they’re almost a completely different texture and flavor profile—earthy, slightly bitter, with a satisfying crunch when cooked properly. The leaves, meanwhile, wilt down like spinach, sweet and tender and prone to overcooking if you’re not paying attention.
The part nobody mentions about rainbow chard strippers
They’re weirdly satisfying to use. There’s something almost meditative about the repetitive motion—grip the stem at the top, pull it through the tool, watch the leaves fall away in one piece. It’s the kind of small, tactile pleasure that makes cooking feel less like a chore and more like a thing you’re actively engaged with, which I realize sounds precious but is actually true. Also, and this is key, the tool works for kale, collards, even large basil stems if you’re making pesto and want to avoid that bitter, fibrous taste that stems can contribute.
Honestly, I didn’t expect to become a person who advocates for a chard stripper. But after using one for a few months, I can’t really go back to the old method—it feels inefficient and fussy in a way I don’t have patience for anymore. The stems don’t bruise as much, the leaves stay more intact, and I actually use the whole vegetable instead of just defaultley throwing half of it into the compost because dealing with it felt like too much work.
