Favorite Kitchen Tools: Stainless Steel Veggie Steamer

We’re back with another Kitchen Gadget of the Week. This time it’s the wonderfully useful Stainless Steel Veggie Steamer Basket!

What a Veggie Steamer Does and Why We Like It

It’s very simple: a veggie steamer basket allows you to quickly cook veggies of all kinds. Veggie steamer baskets come in all shapes, sizes, and materials but we really love the stainless steel veggie steamers because they are lightweight and durable, dishwasher-safe, and they are compact to store. We’ve had the one pictured in this post for years and years and we use it quite often. The essential advantage of using a veggie steamer basket is that it frees you from boiling, or microwaving, your veggies when you want a low-fat method of cooking them. Boiling uses significantly more water since you only need a tiny bit for the steamer basket, plus a significant percentage of the nutrients end up in the boiling water!

What Is Our Fav Recipe To Use This For?

We’ve used our veggie steamer for all sorts of things: green beans, baby red potatoes, and anything that we want to lightly cook and not have boiled away. But our most common uses are to cook baby carrots and broccoli florets. The veggie steamer has short legs on the bottom to keep it raised above the bottom of the pan. So, all you need is about a cup of water in a saucepan, the basket on top, and a lid. Turn the heat up until the water starts to boil – that’s it! (just be sure to check frequently the first few times because your veggies will cook quick!)