The #1 Thing You Should Always Do Before Cooking Broccoli

A small adjustment can help you get the most bang for your buck when preparing broccoli: chop it and let it rest before cooking. For what? It’s a phytochemical called sulforaphane that has many benefits (antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties, to name a few).

The advice comes from a 2018 report, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, that examined the effects of cooking on potent plant compounds, particularly sulforaphane, contained in broccoli.

A quick note: broccoli doesn’t actually contain sulforaphane, it contains another compound called glucosinolate; When you chop broccoli, an enzyme called myrosinase interacts with glucosinolate and releases sulforaphane.

Researchers found that sautéing broccoli reduced its sulforaphane content, but cutting broccoli and letting it sit for 90 minutes before sautéing helped it retain some of these plant compounds.

“Our results suggest that once broccoli florets are cut into small pieces, they should be left for [approximately] 90 [minutes] before being cooked,” the study authors wrote. Although they did not experiment with a shorter time, they said, “we believe that hydrolysis for 30 [minutes] would also be useful.

The only downside: the broccoli florets were cut into 2 millimeter pieces. More research needs to be done to see if broccoli can be cut into larger pieces and retain its increased nutritional value.

Even after you chop the broccoli and let it sit, avoid cooking it at high temperatures if you want to preserve its nutrients. (High heat inactivates myrosinase, which inhibits sulforaphane).

“Excessive heat can interfere with these benefits, which is why boiling and frying is not recommended,” says registered dietitian Eleana Kaidanian, RD. Health.

Besides eating it raw, steaming for five minutes or less is probably the best way to cook broccoli to preserve nutrients, according to Emily Ho, PhD, a distinguished professor at Oregon State University who studies antioxidants. This will help preserve myrosinase and release sulforaphane as you chew. It also helps retain key nutrients like chlorophyll and vitamin C.

If you can’t part with your boiled or roasted broccoli, you may still be able to increase your sulforaphane levels by adding chopped raw broccoli to cooked broccoli or including other myrosinase-containing foods (mustard, radishes, arugula, wasabi, or other uncooked cruciferous vegetables) in your meals.

While there are ways to extract as many nutrients as possible from your broccoli, the most important thing is to eat it as part of a balanced diet. According to Ho, simply eating more broccoli regularly is more important than the preparation or cooking methods.