Steamed Broccoli Recipe (With Video)

This transcription will have some mistakes because it is partially automated.

Hello and welcome to Freshly Served, the healthy vegan cooking show. I’m Heather and tonight we are going to do some sesame steamed broccoli over quinoa.

And I’m gonna also put some kale in there as well. It is gonna be really healthy, full of calcium from the broccoli and the kale. Dark green vegetables all have quite a nice supply of calcium.

Quinoa also has calcium and protein. So let’s get started, I’m going to show you how to cook the quinoa because I know a lot of people have trouble cooking this delicious grain but it’s really quite easy.

So you take a cup of the grain and that’s gonna be enough for two people. Usually it’s a little bit much, there’s a leftover. You can see it’s a really tiny grain and then we’re gonna take two cups of water. It’s the same as most grains, add it in there and we’ll add a little bit of salt in the cooking water that is necessary to help the quinoa cook properly.

We’ll turn this on to high and bring it to a boil and as soon as it gets boiling we’re gonna turn it down to minimum and let it just steam and that I think is the issue that most people have in quinoa is that they keep at a little bit of a boil and then they don’t let it cook long enough.

So you want the quinoa to cook until all of the water is absorbed and it’s nice and dry and fluffy. So we’re just gonna cut the ends of the broccoli because this has been dried out sitting in the store.

Ok, throw that in the compost and then what I do to get the stalk and the florets removed is I just cut it there and then there you have your talk separate and then I’m gonna take the skin off of the stalk because that’s pretty tough and that’s what most people don’t like about the stalk but if you just slice the skin off there, see how nice and soft that is in here. You just cut that up, put it in the streamer with the rest of your broccoli and you’re good to go.

Ok, see? Lovely! And then just cut it into chunks, we’re gonna toss that in the bowl. I took a little bit more skin than I meant to there but you get the hang of it after awhile.

Now with broccoli florets if you cut at this side its gonna fall apart but if you cut in this side and all I do is cut partly into the stem and then pull it apart and that chunk end up pretty big so we cut that in half too and then you have lovely chunks of broccoli. So do that with the rest of your broccoli.

So broccoli is cut, my quinoa has just started to boil so I’m gonna turn it down to minimum and let is simmer. Now normally I would cover this with a lid but because I am going to be steaming, the steamer is going to be the lid.

Now, alright! So I get the broccoli done, next thing I’m gonna do is the kale and the reason I’m using the kale it’s because it’s going to line the bottom of my steamer so that the broccoli doesn’t fall through because if you look at my steamer it got slots in it.

I prefer the bamboo over any kind of metal type steamer because metal can sometimes leach into the vegetables if they’re in contact with it. Bamboo natural material, no problem with it being in contact with your food, if you have metal one that’s ok but if you’re going to buy one, I would buy a bamboo one.

Ok, so I’m gonna keep these kale leaves whole for now because they’re gonna line the bottom of the steamer and then when they’re done steaming I chop them uo and put them in with the broccoli.

Now one thing that people often miss when they’re steaming is that you need to salt the vegetables before you put them into the steamer. You don’t need much, just a pinch for the broccoli and then we’ll do another pinch for the kale. We’ll do that separately.

Just get your hands in there and toss it around, if you lose a broccoli just drive them back sometimes they wanna escape and you’ll see that the broccoli is going to start to release some of its juices and it won’t be quite as dry on the leaf portion, it will start to get some moisture there.

That’s what you’re looking for because otherwise the steaming will just kind of crisp them and if ever you have steamed greens without salting them before you’ll know what I mean because they just get crispy like a leaf and yes they are leaves but we want them to be a little bit cooked and delicious rather than crispy and crunchy like a leaf that’s fallen on the ground.

So just take some salt on your hand, sprinkle some on the kale and just give it a little rub. Ok? The kale is gonna do the same thing as the broccoli, it’s gonna start to release a bit of its juices.

Once your kale and your broccoli are salted you can get them going in the steamer and what I’m gonna do is lined the bottom with this kale like so and I’ve got more than enough here but I love kale so I thought I’ll go a little nuts then just grabbed your broccoli and arrange it on top of the kale. This way none of it is gonna will fall on the cracks and contaminate your quinoa.

So, get that set up here and what you’re gonna do is leave this until the quinoa is cooked. Here we go! Which takes about 20 minutes so just – just leave that alone. You don’t want to be stirring the quinoa, you don’t need to check on the vegetables they’re gonna be just fine.

This has been going for 20 minutes and if we take a look at the vegetables, they’re getting nice and soft, the broccoli when we lightly cook it helps take away some of that bite that a lot of people don’t enjoy but if we only cook it lightly like we are right now steaming it, it maintains all of its nutrients. And then we’ll take a look at here in the quinoa which is looking really lovely and cooked. You can see it’s not sticky.

Steamed veggies over here looking beautiful and I’m going to take some green onions, just to spice things up a little bit. I’m using the same bowl that I toss the broccoli with the salt in just so that I don’t have to do as many dishes.

And like I said at the beginning the dark leafy green excellent source of calcium, Broccoli in particular also helps regulate insulin and blood sugar levels so good choice for diabetic but broccoli is one of those vegetables that just has a ton of nutrients and is good for so many different things that it’s always good to get more in your life.

Hopefully steaming it will make it really nice as well as maintainig the nutrients. Ok, so I got the kale here and it’s still on whole leaves that I use to lined the steaming basket. I’m just gonna chop it up like that and toss it in the bowl with the broccoli.

We’re gonna do things really simple with just a little bit of sesame oil drizzle on the top here. You need very little of this stuff it’s quite a powerful flavor.

And some tamari, tamari is a fermented soy sauce. If you would prefer to just use soy sauce that’s fine as well but tamari is a bit healthier because the soy beans have been fermented.

So give that a toss. The tamari gets absorbed into the broccoli so you don’t want to overdo it, there some pretty powerful flavours but really delicious.

If you want you can mix them together and thin it out with a bit non toasted sesame oil beforehand. You want to make sure that everything gets really saturated with flavor but I find this works just beautifully.

And then we’re just going to up the calcium content a little bit by adding some sesame seeds. Sesame seeds, huge amount of calcium. They’re tiny so you need to eat a lot of them to get that calcium but excellent nonetheless.

Alright! Once you get that toss up, get some quinoa. Put it on a plate, top it wth some broccoli, some kale and sprinkle some more sesame seeds on top just to make it look beautiful.

And there you go, ready to eat! Excellent healthy vegan meal with some quinoa top with steam broccoli and kale!