Spinach, lentils, soybeans, and white beans are among the vegetables with the most iron. A single cup of cooked spinach delivers 6.4 mg of iron, which is more than a third of the 18 mg daily recommendation for women ages 19 to 50. Men need 8 mg per day, and pregnant women need 27 mg.
The iron in vegetables is a different form than what you get from meat, and your body absorbs less of it. That doesn’t make vegetables a poor source, but it does mean the choices you make about which vegetables to eat and how you prepare them matter more than you might expect.
Leafy Greens With the Most Iron
Cooked leafy greens consistently rank among the highest iron vegetables because cooking concentrates them dramatically. You might eat a huge bowl of raw spinach and only get 0.8 mg of iron, but cook that same spinach down and a cup provides 6.4 mg. Here’s how the top greens compare per cooked cup:
- Spinach: 6.4 mg
- Swiss chard: 4.0 mg
- Turnip greens: 3.2 mg
- Amaranth leaves: 3.0 mg
- Beet greens: 2.7 mg
- Collard greens: 2.2 mg
- Dandelion greens: 1.9 mg
- Bok choy: 1.8 mg
Spinach and Swiss chard do come with a catch. Both contain oxalic acid, a natural compound that binds to iron and blocks some of it from being absorbed. That 6.4 mg in spinach won’t all make it into your bloodstream. The iron is still there, and spinach is still worth eating for it, but you’ll absorb a smaller fraction compared to a lower-oxalate green like bok choy or collard greens.
Beans and Lentils
Beans, peas, and lentils sit in an overlap between the vegetable and protein food groups, and they’re some of the most practical iron sources in a plant-based diet. A half-cup serving is smaller than you think, and many people eat a full cup in a meal, which doubles the numbers below.
Per cup of cooked beans or lentils, the iron content is substantial:
- Soybeans (edamame, mature): 8.8 mg
- White beans: 6.6 mg
- Lentils: 6.6 mg
- Black turtle beans: 5.3 mg
- Red kidney beans: 5.2 mg
- Lima beans: 4.5 to 4.9 mg
- Chickpeas: 4.7 mg
- Adzuki beans: 4.6 mg
- Navy beans: 4.8 mg (canned)
- Baked beans: 5.0 mg
- Black beans: 3.6 mg
- Pinto beans: 3.6 mg
A cup of cooked lentils or white beans gives a woman roughly a third of her daily iron needs from a single side dish. For men, that same cup covers more than 80% of the daily target. Tofu, made from soybeans, is also notable: a cup of regular tofu prepared with calcium contains around 13 mg of iron.
Other Vegetables Worth Knowing About
Beyond greens and legumes, a few other vegetables contribute meaningful iron. Green peas provide 2.5 mg per cooked cup. Brussels sprouts and broccoli each offer about 1.2 mg per cup, which isn’t headline-worthy on its own but adds up across a day’s meals. Potatoes also contain iron, particularly when you eat the skin.
None of these will single-handedly meet your daily needs, but they round out an iron-rich diet when paired with higher-iron foods. A dinner plate with lentils, broccoli, and a side of sautéed greens can easily approach 10 to 15 mg of iron before accounting for anything else you eat that day.
Why Your Body Absorbs Less Iron From Plants
All vegetables contain non-heme iron, which is chemically different from the heme iron in meat. Your body absorbs roughly 15 to 35% of heme iron from animal foods, but only about 2 to 9% of non-heme iron from plants, depending on the food. Green leafy vegetables land around 7 to 9% absorption, while dried legumes sit closer to 2%.
Two natural compounds in vegetables are responsible for much of this gap. Phytates, concentrated in beans, lentils, and whole grains, bind to iron in your digestive tract and reduce how much you absorb. The effect is dose-dependent, meaning the more phytate in a food, the bigger the reduction. Oxalic acid, found in spinach, Swiss chard, and beet greens, does the same thing. This is why spinach, despite having impressive iron numbers on paper, delivers less usable iron than you’d expect.
For people who eat mostly or entirely plant-based, overall iron bioavailability drops to an estimated 5 to 12%, compared to 14 to 18% for people who regularly eat animal products. This doesn’t mean vegetarians can’t get enough iron, but it does mean they need to eat more total iron and pay attention to how they eat it.
How to Absorb More Iron From Vegetables
Vitamin C is the single most effective way to boost iron absorption from plant foods. Eating a food rich in vitamin C alongside iron-rich vegetables helps convert non-heme iron into a form your gut can take up more efficiently. This is practical and simple: squeeze lemon over cooked spinach, add bell peppers to a bean stew, or eat an orange with a lentil-based meal.
Cooking also makes a difference. Boiling most vegetables actually increases their measurable iron content by 6 to 12%, likely because water loss concentrates the remaining minerals. Spinach, for example, went from 850 mg/kg of iron raw to 899 mg/kg boiled in one study measuring mineral retention. The exception was carrots and peas, which lost some iron during boiling. Microwaving retained the most nutrients overall, while steaming had a moderate effect.
Soaking and sprouting beans before cooking reduces their phytate content, which can improve how much iron your body pulls from them. Even simply draining the soaking water and cooking in fresh water helps. Fermentation, as in tempeh compared to plain soybeans, also breaks down phytates.
How Much Iron You Actually Need
The recommended daily intake varies significantly by age, sex, and life stage:
- Adult men (19+): 8 mg per day
- Adult women (19 to 50): 18 mg per day
- Adult women (51+): 8 mg per day
- Pregnant women: 27 mg per day
Women before menopause need more than twice as much iron as men due to monthly blood loss. After menopause, the requirement drops to match men’s. Pregnancy pushes the number even higher because blood volume increases substantially to support the developing baby.
If you rely primarily on vegetables for iron, plan on eating more total iron than these numbers suggest, since you’ll absorb a smaller percentage. A general guideline for people eating entirely plant-based diets is to aim for about 1.8 times the standard recommendation, which would mean roughly 32 mg per day for premenopausal women and about 14 mg per day for men. Combining high-iron vegetables with vitamin C at most meals makes this realistic without supplements.