How do I cook vegetables so they still taste of something?

Vegetables get a bad reputation largely from being boiled to death in unsalted water. Different vegetables want different methods: green vegetables want fast and brief, root vegetables want dry heat and time, and almost none of them want twenty minutes at a rolling boil.

What you'll need

• Steamer or a pan with a lid
• Baking tray
• Frying pan
• Salt

Step by step

1. Salt the cooking water properly if you boil.It should taste seasoned. Unsalted water actively draws flavour out of the vegetables into the water.
2. For green vegetables, cook fast and briefly, then stop the cooking.Boil hard for two to four minutes and drain immediately, or plunge into iced water if not serving at once. Long cooking destroys the colour and the texture.
3. Steam rather than boil where you can.The vegetables don't sit in water, so far less flavour and fewer water-soluble nutrients are lost.
4. Roast root vegetables and anything dense.Dry heat concentrates flavour through caramelisation rather than diluting it. See the roasting guide for the technique.
5. Sauté quick-cooking vegetables in a little fat.Courgettes, peppers, mushrooms, greens. Fat carries flavour and high heat browns rather than steams.
6. Cut evenly, and cut denser vegetables smaller.So everything finishes at the same time rather than some being mush while others are raw.
7. Season at the end as well as during cooking.Salt, a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar, and some fat. Most 'boring vegetables' are just unseasoned.
8. Finish with something: butter, olive oil, toasted nuts, herbs, cheese, chilli.Plain steamed vegetables are a side dish nobody wants. Thirty seconds of finishing changes that completely.

Tips

• If you do boil green vegetables, use plenty of water at a hard boil so it recovers temperature quickly — that's what keeps them green.
• Save vegetable cooking water for stock or gravy rather than pouring it away. That's where the flavour went.
• Roasted broccoli, cauliflower and sprouts are transformed compared to boiled — worth trying if you think you dislike them.
• A knob of butter and a squeeze of lemon on almost any green vegetable is the simplest possible improvement.

Common mistakes

• Boiling in unsalted water — It actively leaches flavour out of the vegetables into water you then throw away.
• Overcooking green vegetables — They lose colour, texture and flavour, in that order. Two to four minutes is usually enough.
• Boiling everything by default — Roasting and sautéing concentrate flavour; boiling dilutes it. Most vegetables are better by another method.
• Serving them unseasoned and unfinished — Salt, acid and fat are what make vegetables taste good. Without them, plain is what you get.

Questions people ask