How to Cook Vegetables You Really Want to Eat
Most of us can agree that eating vegetables is good nutritionally. However, the mere knowledge that vegetables are good for you is not enough to suddenly turn disgust into an undying love for broccoli. But give vegetables a try with these tips and you might just learn to love them.
Regardless of how you cut them into cubes, some vegetables can get too bitter (bitter melon, I’m looking at you), so the goal is to make them tastier and more enjoyable overall. At Precision Nutrition, we promote this multi-pronged approach, which starts with forcing yourself to try something that you find disgusting. Maybe it’s cabbage. Or carrots. Or turnips. The logic behind no-duh is that you can’t learn to love something unless you try it, and chances are you still don’t get it right the first time. So pick your “test vegetable”. Then you want:
- Supplement: Add spice, acidity, or a little salty flavor to the vegetable as a first line of defense to balance the vegetable’s bitterness. Condiments include pepper, cumin, garlic, and black pepper. Apple cider vinegar and lemon juice are excellent acidic additives, while capers, olives, and even anchovies add salty punch to the mix.
- Pillow: Here you can use something sweet (like honey, raisins, or wine) or fats (like butter or sesame oil) to further soften the remaining bitterness. Of course, everything will be delicious if you drown it in a sufficient amount of oil or fatty dressings, but this is not what we achieve.
You can do something like a combination of Brussels sprouts, bacon, and onions to get an extremely tasty and common example of all of this at work. Keep in mind that your way of cooking can also affect the yield of your vegetables. Raw foods can sometimes be used, although some of the nutrients from certain vegetables are better absorbed when eaten with fats or when cooked , but also try steaming, stewing, or braising.
One more thing: while the USDA encourages everyone to eat huge servings of vegetables at every meal, progress will still be made when you go from zero to one whole serving of vegetables a day. And once you’ve done that, try to do it consistently to begin with. Check out the infographic below from Precision Nutrition for cooking ideas and flavor combinations.