Malawi’s economy is highly dependent on rain-fed agriculture thereby making it vulnerable to droughts and under-nutrition. Indigenous vegetables (IVs) have remarkable potential in contributing to sustainable food and nutrition security in Malawi. These vegetables are highly nutritious and adaptable to the farming systems and climate of Malawi. Despite that IVs have the potential to contribute to sustainable food and nutrition security in Malawi, there is no empirical evidence that provides the status of the IVs. To address this gap, a participatory evaluation approach was used to identify opportunities and challenges that promote or hinder commercialization of IVs. This study identified various challenges affecting the scaling-up of utilization and commercialization of IVs. From 84 farming households surveyed, 56.1% of the farmers use recycled IV seed. Lack of quality seed was indicated as a major challenge both by farmers and stakeholders. The highly cultivated IV was found to be Pumpkin leaves(Nkhwani), which is cultivated by over 88.1% of the farmers and representing 21.5% of all other vegetables. The current data paves way for designing proper interventions to improve IV value chain. It would be best to develop technical messages as guidelines on best agronomic and post-harvest practices for developing IVs in Malawi.