Whether you eat chard raw or cooked, this nutritious vegetable is easy to prepare. Make sure you rinse the chard thoroughly before eating, as the leaves can trap dirt. Young leaves work well raw in dishes, such as salads. Because more mature leaves tend to be tougher, they're best when cooked. Sauteing chard is one of the most common ways to cook the green, but you can use various other methods, such as steaming, roasting, or grilling. You'll want to remove stems and ribs from the leaves as they can be fibrous and tough. Some cooks use chard stems separately — you can cook chard stems as you would asparagus. When you're removing the leaves from the stems, simply fold each leaf in half and then cut along its stem.