Different Ways to Cook Vegetables

Vegetables are a very important part of the diet because they are so nutritious. It is a sad fact however that most people do not eat enough of them, perhaps because they do not realize how many different ways to cook vegetables there are to choose from. Of course, vegetables can also be enjoyed raw too, in salads or as a side dish.

You should always wash your vegetables before preparing them, to remove the unhealthy chemicals and pesticides. A good way to remove these is to add a tablespoon of baking soda to a bottle of warm water. Spray this mixture on your vegetables, and then clean them with a paper towel.

Steaming

One of the healthiest ways to prepare vegetables is to steam them. Steamed vegetables can be flavored with some butter and black pepper or a squeeze of lemon or limejuice to make a healthy side dish.

You can buy a steamer basket cheaply and put it over a pan of simmering water. Soft vegetables steam faster than harder ones, so you might want to parboil the harder ones first, or add them to the steamer basket five minutes before the softer ones.

Baking

Baked vegetables are very tasty and this method is great for potatoes, carrots, turnips and more. To bake vegetables, you simply need to slice or chop them up, brush them with oil and bake them for forty-five minutes to an hour, or until they are tender. You can sprinkle herbs or spices over the vegetable pieces before baking them, to give them extra flavor.

Boiling

Boiled vegetables are very common but the drawback with this vegetable preparation method is that it removes the nutrients from the vegetables and leaves them in the cooking water. If you have a pan of boiling water, you might like to consider putting a steamer basket over it, rather than adding your vegetables to it.

Grilling

A lot of people assume the grill is solely for cooking meat but if you have never tried any grilled vegetable recipes you have really missed out! If you have a large grill, save a place for the vegetables. Slice or chop them up, wrap them in foil packages and put them on the grill. You can add butter, oil, spices, herbs or any other seasonings and flavorings you like to the foil package. These vegetable packages will take about twenty minutes to grill.

Another way of grilling vegetables is to put them in a skillet on the grill. This is handy if you are outside cooking meat or fish and you do not want to keep running back and forth to the kitchen to cook vegetables on the stove.

Vegetables are very important if you want to enjoy a healthy and balanced diet and it is good that there are various preparation methods for them, so you will not get bored of the same vegetables or the same preparation method.

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