How To Cook Vegetables To Retain Nutrients
Choose a flat and wide cooking container to encourage an even and fast cooking time.
How to cook vegetables to retain nutrients. Leave skins on to hold in the vitamin goodness. Most vegetable need a layer of oil to help their surfaces heat more quickly and keep them from drying out. Since vegetables don t come in contact with cooking water during steaming more vitamins are retained.
If you have a toddler eating with you puree or dice her vegetables after you cook them rather than cooking them to mush. Of course you should use no more than one cup of water for ever half a pound of vegetables you steam. A great method to retain as many nutrients as possible is steaming.
Another study showed both boiling and steaming increased levels of beta carotene. To prevent vitamin loss cut vegetables in larger pieces before you cook them and cook them as close to the serving time as possible. Steam cooked vegetables when you use a steamer to cook your veggies you can be sure that all of their original vitamins and color will be preserved during the steaming process.
Keep an eye on the amount of water used and the time making sure you cook your vegetables long enough to eat but preserving some crunch and flavour. If you want to retain a range of water soluble vitamins flavonoids antioxidant phytonutrients found in spinach onions blueberries apples tea and glucosinolates sulfur compounds found in broccoli brussels sprouts cabbage cauliflower and kale steaming stir frying and microwaving are the best techniques to use. But try to cook carrots whole as cutting can reduce nutrients by 25.
Consider microwaving vegetables with a small amount of water. Dry cooking methods such as grilling roasting and stir frying also retain a greater amount of. Slow cooking if boiling your vegetables for too long decreases their nutrient content surely a method like slow cooking them over hours is a poor choice.
Add the vegetables to steam here are some julienned leeks. Vegetables with thicker skin such as potatoes or squash will retain. Wait for the water to come to a rapid boil before adding vegetables into the steamer basket and steam for a required amount of time.