Pinch a chive leaf and rub it between your fingers. The smell that lifts off is mild onion, not garlic, and that one test settles the question. Chives belong to the chives onion family, the same group that gives us onions, leeks, and garlic. So the plant is far closer to an onion than to a clove of garlic.
The common kitchen herb is Allium schoenoprasum, a true onion relative. That Allium part of the name is the giveaway, since it is the same plant group that holds onions, leeks, shallots, and garlic. Its flavor is softer and more subtle than a green onion or a shallot. You get the oniony note without the sharp bite that makes raw onion sting. That gentle taste is why cooks reach for chives as a finishing touch instead of a base flavor. The whole plant matters here, not just the green tops. Chives grow from small bulbs underground, the same way onions do, and the leaves you snip are hollow shoots rising from that base.
Here is where the name gets tricky. There are two plants people call chives, and they are not the same. Both are real chives, both are edible, and both grow in the same easy clumping way. The split comes down to leaf shape, flower color, and the smell each one gives off when you cut it.
Common onion chives are the ones you find in most gardens and grocery bunches. The leaves are round and hollow, like tiny green straws, and they stand up in a neat clump. In late spring the plant pushes up round flower heads in a bright purple color. Those blooms are edible too, with a light onion taste, and they look great scattered over a salad.
The second type is garlic chives, sometimes sold as Chinese chives. The leaves here are flat and solid, more like a thin blade of grass than a tube. Crush one and you get a soft garlic smell instead of an onion one. This plant flowers later, with white blooms from July to August, so you can tell the two apart even before you taste a single leaf.
Both plants still sit inside the onion family, even the garlic one. The garlic note in garlic chives is gentle, nothing like biting into a raw clove. Think of it as a hint of garlic carried on an onion backbone. That mildness is the whole point, and it lets you add flavor without overpowering a dish. It also explains the confusion behind the question. The garlic name describes the taste, not the plant family. A garlic chive is still an onion relative. It just happens to taste a bit like garlic. A sweet onion is still an onion even when it tastes sugary, and the same logic holds here.
So which should you grow or buy? Pick onion chives when you want a mild oniony garnish for eggs, baked potatoes, or creamy soups. Reach for garlic chives when a dish wants a soft garlic lift, like a stir-fry, dumpling filling, or a simple noodle bowl. Both work the same way in your hands.
Add chives raw or stir them in at the very end of cooking. Heat kills their fresh flavor fast, so toss them on as the last step and serve right away.
The short version is simple. Chives are an onion, not a garlic, even though one popular type carries a garlic name. Both types come from the chives onion family, so you can trust that clean, mild taste either way. Snip them with scissors, scatter them over a finished plate, and you get that flavor with almost no effort at all.
Read the full article: Chives Plant: A Complete Growing Guide
