Are You Rinsing Your Broccoli The Wrong Way?

If you're picking up broccoli on your grocery store or farmer's market run, congratulations. You're making a great choice for your health — broccoli is high in fiber and packed with vitamins that help with everything from lowering cholesterol to possibly helping prevent cancer. You're also choosing a tasty vegetable that can transform into any number of mouthwatering dishes. To enjoy broccoli's benefits, though, it's important to wash it, and do it the right way. This might seem like a simple and obvious task, but you might not actually be cleaning your broccoli the right way.

Many of us likely rinse our broccoli by holding its flowering crown under running water in our sinks, like we're holding a bouquet. That's considered the top of this veggie, after all. However, you actually want to hold broccoli upside down. The running water should hit the stem and make its way into all of the nooks and crannies of the head. If the water gets into the top first, it can become absorbed into the florets and possibly not reach the stem. For the best results, roughly chop your broccoli so that water has even easier access to every stem and flower. 

While plenty of produce is washed before hitting supermarket shelves, it may gather more dirt and bacteria while there. Hence, why a thorough clean is crucial. That said, it can also be effortless using the right technique.

Holding broccoli upside down (and chopping it first) so that a well-pressured stream of water hits every crevice is the easiest, quickest way to guarantee you'll be prepping and serving clean broccoli. Beyond that, you really don't need to waste time on other complicated techniques. Using baking soda is a popular produce-washing method that isn't actually as effective or necessary as many of us may have thought; it just adds extra time and effort to your produce prep. It's also best to avoid cleaning produce with soap as it can leave harmful chemicals behind — not to mention imparting less than pleasant flavors. Likewise, veggie washes may not even work, so definitely don't waste your time or money there.

As long as you're holding your broccoli correctly, good, old-fashioned water does the trick. Some people may let their broccoli soak, but this also isn't necessary. In fact, it could even be less productive given that if one piece is coated in bacteria, this will contaminate the rest of the water that the broccoli is sitting in. So, if you do soak florets and stems, always finish with a good rinse. 

Lastly, unless you're freezing it, only wash your produce before using it as moisture can invite bacteria and hasten the spoilage of your broccoli.