How to grow escarole

Escarole is the broad-leaved type of Cichorium endivia, a cool-season chicory relative grown for a loose, ruffled rosette rather than a tight head. Gardeners plant it as a fall crop that fills the salad bowl once lettuce has bolted in summer heat, since it tolerates a mild frost once established. The flavor is more assertive than lettuce, edible raw or cooked into soups and braises, and the plant fills out to a foot or more across over its 70 to 100 day growth period in full sun.

The hardest part of growing escarole well is bitterness. North Carolina State Extension notes the natural bitterness can be reduced by blanching before harvest, either by pulling the outer leaves over the head and tying them, or by covering the head to block light for several weeks before cutting. A second-year gardener who treats escarole like a cut-and-come-again lettuce, harvesting it unblanched straight out of full sun, ends up with heads too sharp to enjoy raw. The greens are still usable cooked, but the crisp salad use that made the crop worth growing is lost, and the gardener is left with a soup ingredient instead of a green.