The Overlooked Way To Cook Canned Vegetables With More Flavor
While fresh is usually best when it comes to produce, a good stock of canned vegetables is essential in every kitchen. Whether you find yourself short on time, haven't yet made it to the grocery store, or realize the batch in your fridge has gone bad, you can turn to the ingredients in your cupboard to save dinner in a pinch.
Thanks to the preservation process, canned ingredients have a much longer shelf life than their fresh counterparts, so you can buy them in bulk and not have to worry about using them up before they spoil. They're also a more affordable option for home chefs on a budget, especially since they'll hardly ever go to waste.
The best part? They can taste just as good (if not better) than fresh versions — if you know how to cook them. There are plenty of creative hacks for making the most of your canned vegetables, from blanching to get rid of the "canned taste" to adding butter for a richer result. But there's one genius way to bring out more flavor in your canned kitchen companions that may go overlooked.
Cook canned vegetables in broth
The next time you reach for corn, carrots, beans, spinach, or really, any of the go-to canned vegetables, you should also grab a box of broth. After blanching your veggies in a boiling pot, submerge them in ice-cold water (which stops the cooking process), then continue to cook them in a stock or broth. We're not necessarily telling you to make soup — although that's definitely one great way to use canned vegetables. But even if you're serving the veggies straight-up as a side dish, or spotlighting them in a different recipe, cooking your ingredients in pre-seasoned broth will instantly infuse them with more flavor.
You can employ just about any type of stock or broth, from vegetable to chicken to beef, and amp up the taste by adding extra spices to the liquid. Just be sure to keep an eye on the sodium content of both the broth and the veggies if you want to avoid a too-salty result. Chances are you won't need to add any more salt while cooking.
After they've soaked up all of the delicious juices, you can simply strain the vegetables and serve them however you like. That dreaded canned taste will be banished and replaced with a vibrant and well-rounded savory flavor that everyone can enjoy on their plate.