how to boil broccoli

How to Boil Broccoli Correctly

If you ask me which vegetables are my favorite, broccoli is certainly one of them. It’s eye-catching with a bright green color after cooking and contains a lot of vitamins and minerals. Moreover, it’s delicious even when you only have a few minutes to cook it! Boiling is usually my go-to method for cooking broccoli, so here’s how to boil broccoli correctly to get the best texture while preserving most of its nutrients.

how to boil broccoli

Broccoli – The immature flower buds

broccoli is technically a flower! The part of the broccoli that we commonly eat is made up of clusters of immature flower buds. If you leave broccoli to grow without harvesting, these buds will eventually open into small yellow flowers. I used to forget a broccoli in my fridge and… boom, it bloomed after 2 weeks!

Broccoli is low in calories, making it an excellent addition to a balanced diet. It’s also particularly known for its high levels of vitamin C and vitamin K. Fun fact: broccoli is indeed a richer source of vitamin C than orange. Per 100 grams, broccoli provides about 89 mg of vitamin C, while oranges provide around 53 mg of vitamin C. 

how to boil broccoli

Chopping the broccoli

If you’re not familiar with broccoli, its florets might confuse you about how to chop it into pieces easily and beautifully. It consists of thousands of tiny, unbloomed flowers, so it’s very easy for them to fall apart when you cut it, creating lots of small crumbs. After chopping plenty of broccoli, here’s the method I use to cut it neatly with minimal waste and leftover pieces:

  • Cut off the end of the stem: this part is usually very tough and doesn’t contain much nutrition, so you should remove it. Keep the soft part of the stem that you can easily cut with a knife.
  • Cut by branch: The floret consists of many small clusters of flowers, each with a branch attached to the stem. Cut each branch separately, slicing deep into the stem. The central cluster doesn’t have clear branches, so use a knife to split it into bite-sized pieces.
  • If the stem is too long, you can slice it into thin pieces for boiling.
  • Rinse the pieces of broccoli with salty water 2-3 times before cooking to remove impurities.
how to boil broccoli

How to boil broccoli

Boiling is always the easiest cooking method; however, timing is very important to achieve the best texture of the vegetables while retaining most of the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Let’s learn how to boil broccoli with the step-by-step guide below:

Step 1. Preparation

  • Chop the broccoli into bite-sized pieces and rinse with water several times.
  • In a pot, bring water to a boil.

Step 2. Boiling

  • Once the water boils, add the broccoli pieces to the pot and boil them for 2-4 minutes depend on the size of broccoli pieces. Test them with a fork: if you can pierce a piece of broccoli but it’s not too easy to go through the thickest part, the broccoli is perfectly cooked. After boiling, the broccoli will have an eye-catching bright green color.
how to boil broccoli
  • After turning off the heat, immediately remove the broccoli pieces from the boiling water and soak them in cool water or ice water to stop the cooking process.
how to boil broccoli

Step 3. Serving

  • You can garnish the boiled broccoli with olive oil, pepper, and salt, or enjoy it with your favorite dipping sauce. For me, I like to enjoy it simply, but we can get creative to make the dish more flavorful with soy sauce, sesame seeds, fish sauce, paprika powder, and more!
how to boil broccoli

Beside boiling, you can also bake, steam, stir fry or microwave broccoli. Refer another post of mine about how to cook broccoli in oven, air fryer or stove.
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