The best way to cook vegetables to lock in their nutrition
Did you know that the way you cook your vegetables can impact their nutritional value?
Use cooking methods that require less time and use minimal water. Cooking vegetables until they’re just tender helps to minimise nutrient loss and preserve their vitamins and minerals. For example:
- Steaming: Cooks vegetables gently and helps retain water-soluble vitamins like vitamin C and B vitamins. Use a steamer basket and avoid overcooking. Steaming also ensures better preservation of glucosinolates,6 which are associated with having antioxidant effects, and are found in broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage.7
- Blanching: Briefly boiling vegetables and then plunging them into ice water preserves colour, texture, and nutrients, especially if you plan to freeze them.
- Microwaving: Quick and convenient, microwave cooking with minimal water helps preserve nutrients.
In fact, one study8 looking at the effect of different cooking methods on the content of vitamins in vegetables, showed, in general, a higher retention of vitamin C after microwaving (with the lowest retention recorded after boiling).
The study6 also found that microwave cooking caused the least loss of vitamin K in spinach and chard, which your body needs for blood clotting and helping wounds to heal.9
- Stir-frying: Using a small amount of healthy oil at a high heat preserves nutrients while adding flavour. Olive oil or avocado oil are great options. Stir-frying is also a quick and easy way to include a variety of vegetables into one dish.
- Roasting: Cooking vegetables in the oven at moderate temperatures can preserve nutrients and enhance flavour, especially for root vegetables. Flavour is enhanced as roasting helps release natural sugars, while effectively retaining vitamin B1 (thiamine) and vitamin B2 (riboflavin).10 (Cooking times and oven temperatures can vary by vegetable.)
When it comes to tomatoes, roasting them can help increase their lycopene content.5 This is particularly valuable because lycopene is an antioxidant that is believed to protect cardiovascular health11 and is easily absorbed in the body when tomatoes are cooked5 (such as homemade tomato sauce or roasted tomatoes).
Top tip: chop vegetables into bigger chunks
When you cut vegetables into smaller pieces, more of their surface area is exposed to heat and water. This can cause nutrients like vitamins to escape or break down more easily.
By cutting them into bigger chunks, less of the vegetable's surface is exposed, helping to keep more of the nutrients inside.
As you can see, there are lots of benefits to eating seasonally and locally. Why not use this guide as a starting point for nutritious and delicious meal planning?
Read more > Tips to getting your ‘5 a day’
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References
- Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of cardiovascular disease, total cancer and all-cause mortality – Oxford Academic
- Fruit, vegetables and diabetes – Diabetes UK
- Picked at their peak: The benefits of buying seasonal produce – Mayo Clinic
- BDA tips for a sustainable diet – BDA: The Association of UK Dieticians
- Seasonal UK grown produce – Vegetarian Society
- Glucosinolate – an overview – ScienceDirect
- What’s the healthiest way to cook vegetables? – BBC Food
- Effect of different cooking methods on the content of vitamins and true retention in selected vegetables – National Library of Medicine
- Vitamin K – NHS
- Study on vitamin B1, vitamin B2 retention factors in vegetables – National Library of Medicine
- Lycopene: A critical review of digestion, absorption, metabolism, and excretion – National Library of Medicine
