The Time-Saving Hack That'll Change How You Cook Broccoli Forever
Whichever easy dinner ideas for busy weeknights you plan to prepare this week, you're most likely adding a vegetable side or two to accompany your main meals. And when choosing between green beans, peas, and broccoli, most of us choose broccoli.
If you've spent years washing, then chopping broccoli into small pieces before steaming or blanching, you may want to reconsider your preparation process. Surprisingly, you may have been wasting precious minutes cutting raw fibrous broccoli when in reality, you should have been cooking this sturdy vegetable first. As one social media user revealed, steaming broccoli before cutting may be the easiest and fastest way to prepare this cruciferous vegetable.
You've been preparing broccoli wrong this whole time
If you're used to making Instant Pot steamed vegetables, you probably have to cut green beans and cauliflower into uniform pieces before throwing them in your pressure cooker. However, if you've been taking ample time to cut raw broccoli before cooking, now is the time to reverse the process. Thanks to social media, one TikTok user decided to share a new brilliant method with the world.
In the TikTok video, an entire head of broccoli is submerged in boiling water and left to cook for 10 minutes. The poster then removes the softened head with tongs and is surprisingly able to cut off all the broccoli florets in just one simple slice. When you realize this method takes little to no prep time, you might think twice about chopping up your precious vegetable before cooking. Some home chefs might even argue the hardest part about preparing broccoli is the necessary slicing and chopping before the actual cook time.
While you may be quick to adopt this new way of cooking broccoli, you need to keep a few factors in mind to get satisfying results.
Be wary of cook time when boiling an entire head of broccoli
Whether you're planning to eat your next bowl of cooked broccoli alongside an oven-baked chicken breast or sprinkled into an impossibly easy quiche, if you plan to eat more than just the topmost florets, there might be differences in cook time for various parts of the broccoli plant. Broccoli stalks have a somewhat similar nutritional profile to florets, so eating the stems proves to be just as beneficial. When boiling broccoli the standard pre-cut way, most suggested recipes recommend cutting florets into evenly sized pieces so all your broccoli is cooked to the same tenderness. Broccoli stems tend to be more fibrous than their floret counterparts, so they may need to cook a bit longer.
With the reversed method, you're supposed to submerge your broccoli in boiling water and remove the entire head after 10 minutes. But the stem or the innermost florets may need additional cook time. Additionally, based on findings from one 2018 study, chopping broccoli into small pieces and letting them sit for up to 30 minutes before cooking can increase the concentration of sulforaphane, a chemical compound that can protect the body against cancer-causing agents. There may be more benefits to chopping broccoli before cooking than we realize.
However, if broccoli stalks are usually reserved for your compost and you need a fast, efficient method for getting veggies to the table, try cooking broccoli before chopping and decide which method works better for you.