Want to Cook Healthy? Try These Methods (2024)

In addition to making informed decisions about what you eat, how you prepare your food plays a role in eating health. Research has found that the best way to cook is with minimal heat, which helps preserve nutrients. For example, the healthiest way to cook meat is by boiling or steaming it. Both cooking methods use low temperatures and do not require butter and oil, which add calories and unhealthy fats.

Certain cooking methods might change the healthiness and nutritional value of your food. Understanding how to cook with the following techniques can help you create healthy meals.

To blanch means quickly boiling and then placing your food in an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. Blanching helps reduce the loss of food quality and slows the loss of nutrients. Some evidence suggests that blanching might destroy microbes on the surface of vegetables.

Blanching helps keep your vegetables a little bit crisp or almost raw. As a result, this technique locks in your vegetables' colors and nutrients, helping them stay bright and fresh-looking.

Try these tips for blanching:

• Pay attention to how long you need to blanch each type of vegetable. Blanching for too long might affect the color and flavor of your vegetables and lead to nutrient loss.
• You do not need to blanch meat before freezing it. Only blanch vegetables and fruits like apples and pears.
• You'll need one gallon of water per pound of vegetables.

Steaming and Boiling

Steaming and boiling are moist-heat cooking methods. Both options are healthy ways to prepare meats and produce since they use low temperatures. You can also manage your calories by steaming and boiling since neither method requires butter or oil,Tricia Psota, PhD, co-founder and director of the Victus Health and Wellness Center, toldHealth.

Here are some tips for steaming and boiling:

• Eat steamed or boiled foods right away. Keeping your food warm for long periods decreases its nutritional value.
• Make sure that you do not steam or boil vegetables for too long. You want them to be tender instead of mushy.
• Try steaming instead of boiling if you are preparing vegetables. Steaming helps preserve nutrients like carotenoids, phytochemicals, and vitamin C.

Poaching is a healthy and underused way to cook,Lauren Slayton, RDN, founder of Foodtrainers, toldHealth. This moist-heat technique involves a gentle simmer in a liquid like broth or water. Poaching results in moist, soft food that retains its moisture.

Use these tips if you try poaching:

• Make sure you use low temperatures—about 158 to 176 degrees—to poach foods.
• Poaching food in something other than water, such as milk or oil, adds calories,Katie Morford, RDN, author of "Best Lunchbox Ever,"Health. Still, part of a healthy diet is enjoying foods you love.
• Use a meat thermometer. You cannot tell if meat is safely cooked by looking at it. Cook chicken to 165 degrees and beef and pork to 145 degrees.

Stir-Frying and Sautéing

Stir-frying and sautéing are fast and versatile. The downside: Pan-frying requires heating oil at high temps, which may result in harmful by-products. Fumes from some overheated cooking oils might contain heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Research has found that those fumes may increase your cancer risk.

Still, do not stress about possible harm from a bit of hot oil: "If sautéing gets lots of vegetables and antioxidants into someone's diet, that's great," Donald Hensrud, MD, an internist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., toldHealth. "We've got to keep things in perspective."

Here are some tips so you do not have to nix your favorite stir-fry recipe from your weekly dinner rotation:

• Opt for spray oils to cover your pan, which helps reduce how much oil you consume. Many cooking oils contain saturated fat, which may increase heart disease risk.
• Try keeping the cooking time short to avoid overheating and emitting harmful fumes.
• Use an oil with a high smoke point to reduce fumes. Look for an oil with a smoke point of 485 degrees or more, such as avocado oil.

Roasting starchy foods like bread and potatoes might pose a health risk if you cook them too long. Many starchy foods contain the amino acid asparagine, which releases acrylamide at high temperatures. Acrylamide is a possible carcinogen, or cancer-causing substance.

French fries, oven-roasted potatoes, and potato chips have high levels of acrylamide, said Dr. Hensrud. In contrast, dairy, fish, and meat have low to no levels of the substance.

You cannot avoid acrylamide altogether, but here are some tips to boost the healthfulness of roasting:

• Balance roasting with other cooking methods, and eat fried foods in moderation.
• Reduce the amount of acrylamide by toasting bread to a light brown color or browning potatoes to a golden yellow.
• Save energy by pre-heating your oven with the pan inside of it. The warmed pan might cook your food quicker than normal.

Broiling

Broiling involves placing food below your oven's heat source to cook it quickly and give it a charred flavor. The American Heart Association (AHA) advises broiling over frying, which adds calories and fat and increases your risk of weight gain.

Try these tips for broiling:

• Cooking methods that use direct heat sources, like broiling, may cause large nutrient losses. Add some raw vegetables to the side of your dish for nutritious meal.
• Stick to thin cuts of meat, which have shorter cooking times than thick cuts. Broiling delivers a high-heat blast, which might cause acrylamide to form.
• Try marinating meat in curry leaves, curcuma, and lemon grass. Those ingredients might protect against fumes like HCAs.

Research has linked grilled meat to an increased risk of certain cancers. A review published in 2020 noted that grilling meat forms HCAs and PAHs that may cause changes to your DNA that might lead to cancer.

Still, you do not have to give up grilled meat: "If you eat generally healthy, grilling once in a while is a small fraction of your diet and likely won't have any great impact on your health," said Dr. Hensrud.

Here are some to help improve the healthfulness of your grilled foods:

• Avoid directly exposing meat to a hot metal or an open flame. Regularly turn the meat over on a high heat.
• Avoid using gravy made from meat drippings, and do not eat the charred portions of meat.
• Shorten cooking time by using a microwave oven to cook meat before exposing it to high temperatures.

Microwaving

You might typically reserve your microwave for reheating leftovers. Still, microwaves might offer a convenient cooking method. Microwaves use direct heat, but the cooking times are generally short. As a result, your food may preserve many of its nutrients.

Of note: Microwaving is safe for heating vegetables but might not be suitable for cooking meat and poultry. It's difficult to cook food thoroughly and kill bacteria in a microwave.

Try these tips for microwaving:

• Check the temperature of your food after it's done microwaving. Ensure your food reaches a suitable temperature to get rid of bacteria.
• Cover your food while it cooks to avoid splatters and retain heat.
• Make sure that you only cook food in microwave-safe containers.
  

You can bake several treats, including cakes, cookies, and pies. Those foods are typically high in saturated fat and sugar. Baking also cooks food using dry heat, which might lead to greater nutrient losses than other cooking methods. Still, that does not mean you need to give up dessert.

Here are some tips to boost the healthfulness of your favorite baked goods:

• Add fruits and vegetables to your treats to improve their flavor and nutritional value. For example, try using shredded apples, bananas, carrots, and pureed pumpkin.
• Opt for white whole-wheat or whole-grain flour instead of all-purpose flour. Whole grains have more fiber and protein than all-purpose flour.
• Try experimenting with fresh herbs and vanilla beans instead of extracts and pre-packaged ingredients.

Air Frying

Air fryers are cooking appliances that blast hot air to cook your food quickly. This method results in food that is charred and crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. A study published in 2023 found that air-frying vegetables like Brussels sprouts and kale at 160 degrees for 10 minutes resulted in the least nutrient loss among other cooking methods.

In contrast to frying, air frying uses a small amount of oil. Air frying lowers your oil consumption, which helps reduce your acrylamide exposure and heart disease risk.

Try these tips for air frying:

• Clean your air fryer after each use to avoid food and grease build-up. Ensure that your air fryer is unplugged and cools down before cleaning it.
• Cut large poultry into small pieces to help it cook properly. It might be difficult to cook meat and poultry evenly and thoroughly in an air fryer. For example, try air-frying chicken nuggets.
• Use a small amount of oil and spices on your food to avoid making a mess. Air frying does not require much oil.

Do you prefer munching on your local farmers' market haul uncooked? There are lots of ways to zip up raw vegetables. For example, research has found that eating fresh vegetables with healthy fat helps your body absorb plant nutrients. Try adding lime juice and salt to a mashed avocado to make a dip for your vegetables, said Slayton.

Some evidence suggests that people who eat more cruciferous vegetables—like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower—are 46% less likely to have abdominal aortic calcification. This predictor of heart disease causes calcium deposits to build up in your aortic valve. As a result, the valve narrows, restricting blood flow to and from your heart.

Here are some tips to add more tang and zing to plain plants:

• Drizzle your vegetables with an acid (e.g., apple cider vinegar or lemon juice) or olive oil, said Morford.
• Shred some Brussels sprouts, cabbage, or cauliflower into your next salad to eat more cruciferous vegetables.
• Try offbeat picks, such as fennel, jicama, kohlrabi, or radish, for some flavor, said Morford. Pair them with a pinch of salt and black pepper, Greek yogurt, or herbs like basil, cilantro, mint, or parsley.

A Quick Review

How you cook your food might affect its health benefits and its nutritional value. Avoid charring or cooking your food too dark a color, enjoy fried foods in moderation, and use less oil at a low heat. Try to balance roasting, stir-frying, or sautéing with poaching, steaming, blanching, or eating some foods, like vegetables, raw.