Kale is a brassica with 221 known flavor compounds. Kale appears in 283 recipes, most commonly in curry cuisine. Kale has no compounds unique to it in our source data — its profile is made up entirely of volatiles common across many foods, so we don't report a signature molecule or a top pairing for it.
Compounds ranked by rarity — the higher the score, the more distinctive to this ingredient.
Of the ~226 molecules that drive perceived food aroma (Dunkel et al. 2014), Kale's inventory contains 36. Most of the other 185 compounds are below detection threshold.
+ 24 more — showing top 12 by class and threshold.
Generalist = appears in >25% of foods (Maillard / fermentation products). Individualist = appears in <5% of foods (carries signature notes). Threshold values are in clean water — the actual perception threshold in a food matrix can differ substantially.
How Kale's 221 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
6 of 221 are distinctive to kale — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in kale — concentration against odour threshold where both are published, then by how distinctive the molecule is across the graph. Molecules measured here but not established as odorants sit below those that are.
Ranked by how often cooks actually use them together, across 453,403 recipes — the familiar answer first. Each pairing still carries its molecular score and shared-compound count; only the ORDER differs. Counts cover every characterised molecule the two ingredients have in common, not only the aroma-active ones, so they can exceed an ingredient’s aroma-compound count. For the chemistry-first view — where the surprising pairings live — see the molecular network below, the side-by-side comparison, or the Pairing Tool.
Limited data for this ingredient
Our sources don't yet contain a dedicated aroma analysis for kale. Its profile is built entirely from volatiles that are common across many foods, with none specific to it — so the ranking below reflects that shared background, not a distinct molecular match. Treat it as a placeholder until we have GC‑MS coverage for this ingredient.
Kale and its 10 closest compound-sharing relatives. Spoke thickness = shared compounds; circle size = that ingredient's own compound count. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, click to open.
Compare Kale side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
Partial or total replacement of pork fat with homologous functional oils may meet consumer demand for healthy meat products while preserving their sensory quality. This study inves... Read abstract →
Kale is a nutrient-dense leafy vegetable associated with wide-ranging health benefits. It is tolerant of drought and temperature fluctuations, and could thus serve an increasingly... Read abstract →
Soil thallium (Tl) pollution is a serious environmental problem, and vegetables are the primary pathway for human exposure to Tl. Therefore, it is important to investigate the char... Read abstract →
Thallium (Tl) is a highly toxic trace metal that can cause severe pollution and damage to the ecological system. In this study, a field trial was conducted in a Tl-rich pyrite-bari... Read abstract →
Chilling stress is an important constraint for kale seed germination and seedlings establishment. It is vital to develop an effective approach to enhance kale seed germination abil... Read abstract →
