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I'm wondering your thoughts on microwaving my veggies every night for a couple minutes and then sautéing it afterwards to minimize the olive oil needed to cook it entirely in the pan.

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

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This event was on February 25, 2025

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Chef Dan is ready to answer them all.

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Question

Mark Rappaport

I'm wondering your thoughts on microwaving my veggies every night for a couple minutes and then sautéing it afterwards to minimize the olive oil needed to cook it entirely in the pan. ?

Answer

So if you're using the oil, um, and just even minimal, you don't need to microwave it before you're sorting it in a pan. You can cook it completely in the pan, um, without having to use the microwave, which is what I would recommend doing. Um, you can just keep it down to a, a, you know, a lower level heat on it, um, to be able to cook it up, you know, uh, so it cooks through. You can also even put water in the pan to be able to help steam it and then add a little bit of oil to the pan to put a caramelization on it if that's what you wanna do. Um, you know, so that's probably what I would recommend most often is especially if you're doing it every night, just to put your, your veggies right in the pan and start off at a lower heat and then raise it up to be able to put a caramelization on it depending on what your vegetables are.

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

*Dan Marek* is a chef educator who has been teaching vegan and vegetarian cooking for over 15 years. At Rouxbe, he is our Director of Plant-Based Culinary and Development where he helps develop content, classes and builds courses for many of our partners. Dan is a board member of Slow Food Austin, the Institute of Child Nutrition, and Conscious Capitalism. He has earned his BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and holds certificates in Nutrition from Cornell University. Prior to his role with Rouxbe, Dan worked with Whole Kids Foundation training teachers and food service at schools across the country on nutrition and culinary best practices. He also worked as a Healthy Eating Educator at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin, TX, was a personal chef for some of Austin’s elite business people, taught classes in culinary techniques at Austin Community College, The Natural Epicurean, and Le Cordon Bleu. Dan also regularly volunteers cooking or speaking about nutrition for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Marathon Kids, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Central Texas.