Tips for Cooking Vegetables

When thinking about how to bump up your vegetable intake, consider how it is prepared too! Although a vegetable can be flavorful by itself, combining vegetables together, more specifically aromatics, can really help infuse flavor into vegetables (and bring out the natural flavors of the vegetable itself).

So, you may be wondering, what are aromatics? Aromatics are certain foods and vegetables that when combined with other foods create different flavor profiles to create new flavors or layers of flavors. This is why sometimes a food can taste sweet and then spicy, or start off tasting mild, but then you are hit with a bold flavor. Popular aromatics used in the USA today include carrots, celery leeks, onions, parsnips, peppers (all types), shallots, scallions, ginger, and garlic. Besides helping to add flavor without extra salt, sugar, or fat, most of these foods can also help with meeting the daily minimum of 5 servings of fruits and/or vegetables!