Why You Should Never Sauté Vegetables With Meat - Tasting Table (2024)

FAQs

Why You Should Never Sauté Vegetables With Meat - Tasting Table? ›

When you sauté meat with oil in a pan, it soaks up the oil and browns well, but when veggies soak up oil, they turn soggy. Most vegetables also release a lot of water as they cook. Excess water in the pan diminishes browning and the Maillard reaction, which is what makes seared meat delicious.

When you're making a stovetop dish with meat and veggies, like one-skillet chicken cacciatore or spicy beef stir fry, it's tempting to want to throw everything in the pan together and let it cook all at once. But for optimal flavors and textures, make sure to sauté your veggies after your meat.

Unlike roasting, air-frying, or baking, which can cause some vegetables to lose moisture and dry-out, sautéing allows vegetables to retain more of their juices. You'll also preserve more of the healthy, nutritional qualities by not over-cooking the vegetables.

Get the pan nice and hot before adding any food.

Sautéing is a high heat process, so don't drop that food into the pan until it's good and hot. There's an easy test: Add a drop of water to the pan and if it immediately starts to sizzle and evaporate, you're good to go.

While certain vegetables can work just fine added directly to simmering soups and stews (say, carrots and celery), other vegetables (onions, garlic, and the like) will almost always need at least a brief sweat in a fat-based liquid before adding the remaining ingredients.

The ideal order to eat this type of meal would be vegetables first, followed by the protein, and finish with the carbs. It is likely that this order reduces blood sugar levels following a meal due to preloading of high fiber-containing vegetables, which slows down digestion.

If sautéing more than one vegetable at a time, what vegetables do you sauté first? Start with the hardest vegetables first, such as sweet potatoes, carrots, or cauliflower. Onions also need quite a while to cook, whereas zucchini and squash need less time, and garlic needs even less.

Stir-fry. Stir-frying is a good option because while the heat is high, it's quick. That sears the vegetables quickly, locking in important nutrients and maintaining their color and texture. Be sure to use small amounts of oil and choose healthier varieties (like olive or vegetable oil).

Sautéing and stir-frying improve the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and some plant compounds, but they decrease the amount of vitamin C in vegetables.

Best: Steaming

A gentle steam is best; it allows vegetables to maintain their nutrients because the vitamins and minerals don't leak out into the water you end up discarding. “Steaming is one of the best ways to retain nutrients, and tends to be one of the quicker methods of cooking vegetables,” says Raimo.

What is the first golden rule of cooking? ›

1. Read the recipe. Of all the important advice out there about cooking, this by far has to be the number 1 rule of cooking: read your recipe completely before getting started. This may seem like a mundane task (especially when you're excited dive in!), but you'll be so thankful you took the time to do it!

Use the largest non-stick skillet you have.

Using a non-stick skillet will ensure your vegetables will slide out easily and retain their beautiful shape. (P.S. If you're in the market for a new pan, I highly recommend the Caraway 12″ Sauté Pan [affiliate link].

A sauté pan's sloped sides not only assist you in releasing the ingredients toward the pan's lip and into the air, but the sloped sides also encourage the steam from the foods to release into the air instead of being trapped in the pan, which would prevent the products from browning and cooking as quickly.

Water is needed to soften the vegetables, but rather than parboiling before sautéing, we reverse the process. In other words, sauté the vegetables first until spotty brown but not cooked through and then add a small amount of water to the skillet.

Onion is the first to go in the pan because it needs time to become translucent, meaning it's cooked, which takes about 10 minutes. Garlic, on the other hand, cooks quickly and burns easily, so introduce it after the onion is cooked.

But once those vegetables are exhausted, they're strained and switched out for a fresh set of thinly sliced celery and carrot. These are added for the final 4–5 minutes of cooking so that they're tender but nowhere near mushy. You get the sweet luxury of long-cooked vegetables and the freshness of crisp-tender ones.

If the vegetables in the stir-fry cook fast, you can add the protein after cooking the aromatics (like garlic and ginger) and add the vegetables right after. This can also yield a cleaner dish, since you won't end up with any burned bits in the dish.

When you are cooking any recipe, the best practice is to begin by sauteing the onions and garlic first. By beginning your cooking process with sauteed onion and garlic you are going to add lots of rich flavor to the dish you're making. You want to saute onion and garlic at the beginning of any dish.

You can cook your meat and veggies in the same skillet, but cook the meat first, take it out, and then add in your veggies. Be especially careful with frozen veggies.