Exploring Nutrition: What Vegetable Has the Most Potassium?

October 2, 2025 •

4 min read

According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, potassium is a nutrient that most Americans do not consume enough of, and leafy greens often top the lists for concentration. When it comes to pinpointing what vegetable has the most potassium, cooked beet greens stand out as a nutritional powerhouse.

Quick Summary

This guide identifies the highest potassium vegetables, highlights their significant health benefits, and offers practical strategies for easily incorporating these nutrient-dense foods into your regular meals.

Key Points

Beet Greens Reign Supreme: Cooked beet greens offer the highest concentration of potassium per serving among common vegetables, with one cup providing over 1,300 mg.
Diverse High-Potassium Options: Other excellent vegetable sources include Swiss chard, spinach, baked potatoes (with skin), sweet potatoes, and legumes like lima beans.
Supports Heart and Blood Pressure: Adequate potassium intake helps regulate blood pressure by counteracting the effects of sodium, protecting against heart disease and stroke.
Easy to Incorporate: Adding potassium-rich vegetables is simple through methods like blending into smoothies, sautéing, roasting, or including them in soups and stews.
Watch Out for Kidney Health: While potassium from food is safe for most, individuals with kidney disease must monitor their intake carefully to avoid hyperkalemia, or excessive potassium levels.
Food Over Supplements: It is best to obtain potassium through a balanced diet rather than supplements, unless specifically advised by a doctor for a medical condition.

The Power of Potassium

Potassium is an essential mineral and electrolyte critical for numerous bodily functions, including maintaining fluid balance, regulating blood pressure, supporting nerve signals, and enabling proper muscle contraction. A diet rich in potassium can counteract the effects of high sodium intake, helping to lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. While bananas are famously known for their potassium content, many vegetables offer a more concentrated dose, making them an excellent choice for a healthy diet.

The Top Contender: What Vegetable Has the Most Potassium?

Among all vegetables, cooked beet greens are the undisputed champion for potassium content, particularly when measured per cooked cup. A single cup of cooked beet greens can provide over 1,300 milligrams (mg) of potassium, which is more than a quarter of the daily value for adults. Other leafy greens and starchy vegetables also rank highly, making them valuable additions to your diet.

Here are some of the vegetables with the highest potassium levels:

Beet Greens: As mentioned, these are the top source, delivering a massive dose of potassium. They can be sautéed, added to soups, or blended into smoothies.
Swiss Chard: Another leafy green powerhouse, a cup of cooked Swiss chard offers nearly 1,000 mg of potassium. It's an excellent addition to stir-fries or as a side dish.
Spinach: Cooked spinach is a fantastic source, providing around 840 mg per cooked cup. It's versatile and works well in pasta, omelets, and as a simple side.
Potatoes: A medium baked potato with the skin on contains more than 900 mg of potassium, making it an accessible and affordable option.
Sweet Potatoes: Offering over 500 mg per cooked cup, sweet potatoes are another great starchy vegetable choice.
Legumes (Lima and White Beans): While technically legumes, they are often used in vegetable dishes and provide significant amounts of potassium. Cooked lima beans offer almost 1,000 mg per cup.
Acorn Squash: A cup of cooked acorn squash delivers nearly 900 mg of potassium, along with a host of other vitamins.

High Potassium Vegetables: A Comparison

To help you visualize the potasium content of common vegetables, the following table provides a comparison based on a typical cooked serving size, using data primarily from the Cleveland Clinic and USDA.


Vegetable	Serving Size (Cooked)	Approximate Potassium Content (mg)
Beet Greens	1 cup	~1,309
Swiss Chard	1 cup	~961
Baked Potato (with skin)	1 medium	~926
Lima Beans	1 cup	~969
Acorn Squash	1 cup	~896
Spinach	1 cup	~839
Sweet Potato	1 cup	~572
Broccoli Rabe	1 cup	~550

Integrating High-Potassium Vegetables into Your Diet

Increasing your potassium intake from vegetables is both easy and delicious. Here are several simple ways to make them a regular part of your meals:

Green Smoothies: Blend a handful of raw spinach or Swiss chard into your morning smoothie. The flavor is often masked by fruits like bananas or berries, providing a significant nutrient boost.
Roasted Vegetables: Chop and roast sweet potatoes, potatoes, or acorn squash with some olive oil and your favorite spices. Roasting brings out their natural sweetness and is a great side dish.
Sautéed Greens: Quickly sauté beet greens, Swiss chard, or spinach with garlic and a splash of lemon juice. They cook down quickly and make a perfect accompaniment to any meal.
Hearty Soups and Stews: Add potatoes, legumes, and chopped leafy greens to your favorite soups, stews, and curries. This is an excellent way to incorporate a variety of high-potassium vegetables.
Baked Dishes: Use sweet potatoes or potatoes as a base for baked dishes, or incorporate greens into casseroles and egg bakes like frittatas.
Juice Blends: If you prefer, vegetable juices can also be a source of potassium, but remember that whole foods offer more fiber.

Potential Health Risks and Considerations

While it is very difficult to consume too much potassium from food alone for most healthy individuals, certain groups should be cautious. People with chronic kidney disease (CKD) or those on specific medications that affect potassium levels may need to restrict their intake. The kidneys are responsible for filtering out excess potassium, and if their function is impaired, dangerous levels can build up in the blood, a condition called hyperkalemia. Always consult a healthcare provider before making significant dietary changes, especially if you have pre-existing health conditions. Getting potassium from food is generally safer and more effective than supplements, which should only be taken under medical guidance.

Conclusion

In the quest to find what vegetable has the most potassium, cooked beet greens emerge as the clear winner per serving, followed closely by other powerhouse greens like Swiss chard and spinach. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, and various legumes also provide substantial amounts of this vital mineral. By incorporating a variety of these foods into your diet through simple methods like roasting, sautéing, and adding them to soups, you can naturally increase your potassium intake. This effort supports heart health, blood pressure regulation, and overall well-being, proving that a flavorful diet is a healthy diet.

For more detailed information on nutrient values, consulting authoritative sources like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is recommended.

Frequently Asked Questions

Cooked beet greens contain the most potassium, with approximately 1,309 mg per cooked cup.

Yes, a medium-sized baked potato with the skin on is an excellent source of potassium, providing over 900 mg.

Potassium helps regulate blood pressure by easing tension in blood vessel walls and assisting the kidneys in flushing out excess sodium, which can contribute to hypertension.

It is highly unlikely for a healthy person to get too much potassium from diet alone. The kidneys typically excrete any excess.

For most people, it is safer and more effective to get potassium from whole foods, as they also provide other nutrients. Supplements should only be taken under a doctor's supervision.

You can add cooked spinach or chard to omelets, roast sweet potatoes, or blend leafy greens into a smoothie for an easy potassium boost.

Some potassium can be lost when boiling vegetables, as the mineral leaches into the water. To minimize loss, steam, roast, or sauté vegetables, or incorporate the cooking liquid into your meal.