The healthiest way to eat vegetables is by steaming them. Since cooking methods like frying, grilling, or roasting take a large amount of natural crispiness and nutrients away from the veggies, steaming them in a steam oven is the best way to move around a balanced diet.
This will not require you to add some out-of-the-box recipes or ingredients to your diet, and still get the maximum benefit from the day-to-day meals. However, if you leave the vegetables in a steam oven longer than usual, they’ll get mushy or overcooked. So, if you’re experimenting with Usha’s steam oven for the first time, here are some tips to get perfectly steamed vegetables.
Preheat The Steam Oven
The first step to operating any oven is to preheat before adding a baking tray. Preheating for a few minutes allows the steam to penetrate your ingredients faster, thus preventing them from sitting at a colder temperature and getting soggy. Depending on which vegetable you’re steaming and the quantity, the time for preheating might vary, but it is surely a non-negotiable step.
Temperature Settings
After the oven is preheated, you can change the temperature settings as per requirement. Steaming most vegetables will require a temperature ranging from 93 to 100°C. As a thumb rule, you can choose a lower temperature for leafy veggies like spinach, cabbage, or lettuce and a slightly higher temperature for denser vegetables like potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, etc.
Size Of Chopped Veggies
While preparing the vegetables to steam, try to chop them into uniform-sized pieces. With a range of different-sized pieces, there’s always a risk for the smaller parts to get overcooked, and the larger bits might remain undercooked.
Steaming Tray
Using the right tray to perfectly steam veggies in Usha’s steam oven is important. If you use a solid baking tray, the moisture can accumulate on its surface, making the veggies soggy. So, it’s recommended that you always opt for a perforated tray, which allows the steam to circulate freely. Also, make sure that you don’t overcrowd the perforated tray.
Cooking Time
As per the density and size of the vegetable, the time to steam them varies. For example, leafy vegetables only take about two to four minutes to steam. Veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and potatoes can around ten minutes of steaming time. So, it’s best to keep an eye on the cooking time to avoid veggies from getting burnt.