One very important task to master when living in another country is doing your grocery shopping in the local language. We’ve been teaching some useful Indonesian vocabulary for food, such as fruits, as well as meat and seafood. Today we’re going to round out your grocery list with some Indonesian vegetable vocabulary.

Vegetable Vocabulary

Image by Seika from flickr.com.

Don’t forget to eat your vegetables! Here are 25 Indonesian words for veggies:

• bawang = onion

• bawang putih = garlic

• bayam = spinach

• brokoli = broccoli

• buncis = beans

• bunga kol = cauliflower

• cabe = chili pepper

• daun bawang = green onion

• jagung = corn

• jamur = mushroom

• kangkung = water spinach

• kentang = potato

• ketimun = cucumber

• kol = cabbage

• labu = pumpkin

• paprika = peppers

• sayur = vegetable

• selada = lettuce

• tahu = tofu

• terong = eggplant

• tempeh = tempeh

• tomat = tomato

• ubi = sweet potato

• wortel = carrot

• zaitun = olives

Vegetables in the Indonesian Diet

Load up some greens on your plate.

While vegetarianism isn’t huge in Indonesia, vegetables do make up a large part of the local diet. When frequenting your local nasi campur joint, you’ll find plenty of choices when it comes to veggies. You always find at least one kind of sayur hijau (green vegetable) and there’s always plenty of chilis as well.

Mmm… gado-gado!

As far as common vegetable dishes go, it doesn’t get much better than gado-gado. The name literally means “mix-mix,” and that’s exactly what it is – a mixture of vegetables, boiled eggs, and peanut sauce. It’s delicious, cheap and found all across the vast archipelago nation. Other common veggie dishes include urap-urap sayur (cooked veggies w/ spiced grated coconut), cap cay (stir-fried veggies) and sayur lodeh (a vegetable soup).

Now you’re all set to do your grocery shopping in Indonesian and try some awesome local veggie dishes!