How to Steam Vegetables

Steaming vegetables is the best choice if you want to preserve a vegetable's maximum vitamin and mineral content.

Natural taste, texture and color are also best preserved by steaming.

Almost any vegetable can be steamed: artichokes, spinach, mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, rutabagas etc.

And it’s low fat cooking at its best—there is no added fat in steamed vegetables.

You will need a steamer basket that fits into a saucepan, or a bamboo steamer that sits over top.

Prepare the vegetable, as needed: trim the strings and ends of pea pods and green beans; remove tough stems, ribs and seeds from peppers; peel carrots and potatoes, etc

Cut the vegetable to even-sized pieces, so all the pieces will be cooked around the same time.

Arrange the vegetables in the steamer basket; if steaming a mixture of vegetables at once place the hardest ones at the bottom.

Fill the saucepan with about an inch or two of water and let water come to a boil.

Insert steamer basket into the saucepan, making sure the water level doesn’t come up to the bottom of the basket.

Cooking time will vary depending on the toughness and thickness of the vegetable—anywhere from 2 minutes for pea pods up to 30 minutes or more for harder vegetables like rutabaga.

If you are steaming a hard vegetable watch the water level in the pot—-you may have to add more water towards the end of steaming time.

Test one of the vegetables by slicing into it with a fork. What you are looking for is vegetables to be tender but with a bit of crispness to them.

When the vegetables reach the desired state, simply add some freshly cracked black pepper, some kosher salt or a simple vinaigrette.

Try these quick easy recipes:

green beans with shallot vinaigrette

lemony green beans




Now you know how to steam vegetables, find some healthy fish recipes…