青菜(qīng cài) - greens, leafy vegetable in Mandarin

青菜 (qīngcài) is the everyday word for leafy greens, from 青 (qīng, a blue-green colour word) plus 菜 (cài, "vegetable, dish"). Where 蔬菜 (shūcài) is the clinical category term, 青菜 (qīngcài) is what you actually say when you point at a plate of stir-fried leaves in a restaurant.

In many regions 青菜 (qīngcài) refers specifically to bok choy or a similar leafy green rather than "vegetables" in general, so ordering 一个青菜 (yí gè qīngcài) at a restaurant gets you a plain stir-fried greens dish, not a mixed vegetable platter. Context and region shift the exact vegetable, but the "leafy and green" sense holds everywhere.

炒青菜 (chǎo qīngcài), "stir-fried greens", is one of the simplest and most common home dishes: garlic, oil, a hot wok, and the leaves in for barely a minute so they stay bright rather than going limp.