Have you ever noticed that vegetables change color as you boil them? And I’m not talking about the brown spots you get from a good sear; I’m talking about how the whole thing becomes bland and lifeless looking. And it doesn’t just look dead, but it becomes limp and floppy too.

Why is this?

I’ll explain, but spoiler alert: when your broccoli turns brown, you’ve overcooked it—yes, there’s such a thing as boiling a vegetable for too long. And if you can master the timing of cooking your vegetables, they’ll become one of your favorite parts of the meal.

Those Pesky Cell Walls

One of those things that separates plants from animals is that animals’ cells are surrounded by a flexible cell “membrane,” while plant cells are surrounded by a rigid and durable cell “wall.” These cell walls are the reason that vegetables are tough and hardy while animal flesh is soft and pliant.

Cell walls are also the reason vegetables aren’t a ton of fun to chew. And more importantly, cell walls lock in a lot of flavor and nutrition.

As a chef, your goal with the cell walls of your veggies is not to totally obliterate them like Genkhis Khan conquering the city of Bukhara. Instead, you’re just trying to soften those walls a little bit. You want to break them down just enough that the water-soluble vitamins within become accessible to you. This is a concept called bioavailability.

The best way to accomplish this is through steaming, stir-frying, and oddly enough, microwaving your vegetables. Each of these have their place (I’m not at all against microwaving some broccoli). However, when I’m trying to be fancy, my favorite method of cooking is to blanch my greens.

Salt Salt Salt, Baby

It is super easy to overcook your vegetables when you’re boiling them in water. Hot water has super high thermal energy, which leads to quick overcooking. On top of that, it’s easy to get distracted and forget about your vegetables while you’re checking the temperature of your baked potatoes or getting ready to flambé your filet. Suddenly, your broccoli is brown and the water you cooked it in is green. Whoopsie, there go all your flavor and nutrients!

The solution? Tons of salt.

Grab an entire fistful of salt and dump it in your pot of water. Then do it again. Keep adding salt until the water tastes as salty as the ocean.

Why? Because science.

A high-salt solution will discourage osmosis, preventing nutrients from leaching out of the plant cells and into the cooking water. Additionally, salt lowers the boiling temperature of water, thus cooking the vegetables even faster.

But won’t this make the vegetables taste super salty?

Not at all! Most of that salt will stay in the water, and the salt that clings to the vegetables will be super tasty. Remember, the main point of all that salt isn’t to flavor the food, it’s to create an ideal cooking environment to prevent osmosis.

Just Follow These Steps

Next time you want to try blanching, your goal is to cook those greens for the minimum time necessary. I follow this process:

1. Get a big pot of water onto the stove and set the stove on high.


2. Pour big fistfuls of salt into the water until it’s as salty as the ocean.


3. While the water heats up, wash and chop your vegetables.


4. Pour a bowl of ice water and set it aside.


5. Once the water is boiling, add your vegetables.


6. Keep an eye on them; they’ll be done in just a few minutes!


7. Once the colors really pop (you’ll notice an brightening), try stabbing one with a fork.


8. If you can pierce the vegetable with only mild resistance, it is ready!


9. Remove the pot from the heat, strain it, and immediately add the vegetables to the ice water. This is called shocking your vegetables, and it’s meant to immediately stop the cooking process and prevent excessive cell breakdown.


10. Season with butter, and lemon. Or bacon and apple cider vinegar. Or lard and lime. You know what? Enjoy your veggies however you want.

    Matthew Christensen
    Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2023
    Email the author! matthew@dvo.com