How to Cook Vegetables

Learning how to cook vegetables can be broken down into simple, easy understandable parts. The essential parts involve cleaning and preparation and the techniques of different cooking methods. In this article we will cover these basics, as well as taking a look at what methods are the fastest and healthiest ways to cook vegetables.

Cleaning and Preparation

There are two major reasons for cleaning vegetables thoroughly before cooking them. The first one, which will be obvious to anyone, is that fresh vegetables are often covered in dirt due to being grown in the ground. There’s also a less obvious reason – virtually all vegetables you buy from a supermarket will come from crops sprayed with pesticides. These chemicals, while invisible, can be harmful and should not be ingested. Make sure all vegetables are washed thoroughly before you start cooking. This is less important with vegetables that will be peeled, but it’s still good practice to do it.

Peeling and chopping are the next elements of preparation. The recipe should specify how vegetables are to be prepared – whole, peeled, diced, sliced, finely chopped, mashed, and so on. There is a difference between sliced and diced – slicing means a long fine slice in one direction through the vegetable, while diced means cutting the vegetable into cubes.

How to Cook Vegetables-Different Cooking Methods

See our basic cooking lesson on different cooking methods. Some favorite ways to cook vegetables include:

Boiling. This simply involves placing the vegetables in a pot of boiling water until cooked – you can usually tell with most vegetables when they are cooked because they will be soft when poked with a fork.
Sauté. A sauté involves cooking all the ingredients of a meal in a pan at once, usually with oil or a little fat.
Barbeque. You can cook some vegetables on a grill to go with a barbequed meal.
Steaming. As the name suggests, this is cooking using steam. You boil water underneath the vegetables and the steam passes up through a grate to cook them – this method requires the right cooking utensils.
Bake. Many vegetables are best baked in the oven such as baked potatoes, eggplant, squash or fresh pumpkin.

Boiling and steaming, as they only use water, are known to be very healthy methods of cooking vegetables. Any method that includes using oil, such as frying, tends to be less healthy – although this depends on the type of oil used. Sautéing is next on the list of healthy options after boiling and steaming.

Vegetable Recipes

In order to learn how to cook vegetables, here are a few recipes to try.
Stir Fry
Stuffed Peppers
Cabbage Rolls
Raw green salads
Vegetable sticks and Dip
Minestrone Soup

vegetable variety

Cook baked potatoes

To cook whole baked potatoes, pierce potato with a fork on all sides of potato. Place on a cookie sheet or wrap in tin foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-40 minutes depending on size of potato. Potatoes are done when you can poke a fork in the potato easily.
Try twice baked potatoes.

Cook fresh pumpkin

To cook a fresh pumpkin, cut pumpkin in quarters or small wedges. Place on a foil lined cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees until tender. Pumpkin is tender when you can poke a fork in the pumpkin easily. Time varies on the size of your pumpkin pieces. Scoop flesh out of pumpkin rind and puree in blender or mash with a fork. Place in plastic containers and freeze to use in future recipes.

How cook eggplant

Wash eggplant well. Pierce with a fork all over eggplant skin. Place on a foil lined cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes or until eggplant collapses. Allow to cool slightly. Cut open and scoop out insides. Use chopped eggplant in casseroles, add to spaghetti sauce, dips such as baba ghanoush or an eggplant recipe of your choice.

Cooking asparagus

Break off ends by bending and snapping the end of the stalks. Use a wide skillet the stalks can lay down in. Boil asparagus in 5 cups of water with 1/2 Tablespoon salt. Boil 5-7 minutes until skewer pierces the middle easily. Don’t overcook.

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Related Basic Cooking Lesson Pages:
~ Basic Cooking Lessons, ~ Stock and soups, ~ 5 mother sauces, ~ Yeast and baking breads, ~ Herbs and spices, ~ Vegetables, ~ Dry beans, ~ Grains, ~ Eggs, ~ Different cooking methods, ~ Growing an herb garden, ~ How to cook Q&A forum

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