Lesson Description & Goals

Properly-cooked vegetables are hard to come by. They are either too crunchy or terribly over-cooked. When cooking vegetables, the main objectives are to preserve flavor and color, while achieving the desired texture.

In this lesson, you will learn the basics of vegetable cookery. By understanding the differences between boiling, simmering, blanching and parboiling, you won’t ever have those childhood fears of eating poorly-cooked vegetables again.

• Identify the key steps for preparing to cook vegetables in water
• Understand why salt plays an important role
• Understand which vegetables should be boiled or simmered
• Properly test vegetables for doneness
• Understand the difference between blanching and parboiling
• Identify when you should blanch or parboil
• Know how to cook frozen vegetables

Lesson Topic Videos

• Introduction to Vegetable Cookery (0:54)
• Preparing to Cook Vegetables (1:21)
• Boiling & Simmering Vegetables (3:10)
• Blanching & Parboiling Vegetables (2:30)
• Cooking Frozen Vegetables (1:22)

Lesson Prerequisites

IMPORTANT NOTE:
We wanted you to be aware that there are one or more identified prerequisites to this lesson. Whether you choose to purchase a prerequisite lesson or lessons is up to you, but this lesson will likely include references to prerequisite lessons.

• How to Preserve Vegetable Pigments

All Lessons in the Vegetables Section

• How to Preserve Vegetable Pigments
• Cooking Vegetables in Water
• How to Steam Vegetables
• How to Roast Vegetables