Pan-Steamed Asparagus

We combined two cooking methods to make tender-crisp, flavorful asparagus.

Preserve more of asparagus spears

Instead of snapping off the spears’ tough bottoms, we trim and peel them, which preserves more of the asparagus.
Ensure fresh-tasting asparagus

Briefly pan-steaming the asparagus preserves its color, grassy flavor, and crisp-tender texture.
Enhance asparagus with simple flavors

Garlic and butter added to the skillet with the water give the asparagus a flavor boost once the water burns off.

Get the Recipe > Pan-Steamed Asparagus with Garlic

Asparagus cooks in a snap and needs little more than butter and salt to make it shine. And while I like the nuttiness that roasting brings to asparagus, it’s also nice to pay homage to spring by preserving its bright green color and grassy flavor. Steaming is one way to accomplish this, but I’ve never found the method entirely satisfying; it tends to wash out the vegetable’s already delicate flavor and leave the spears wet and plain-tasting.

How about sautéing the asparagus in butter? The fat would thoroughly coat the spears and add flavor, and if I was careful about moving the asparagus around the pan, I could prevent browning. First, I trimmed the ends from 2 pounds of asparagus and peeled the spears’ bottom halves. (This results in less waste than snapping off the woody parts; see “Don’t Snap Asparagus; Peel It.”) To fit the spears in the pan, I cut them on the bias into 2-inch lengths. I then melted butter in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and added the asparagus.

We found that when you snap off the bottoms of asparagus spears, you lose an average of half their weight. We prefer to trim the bottom inch, which gets rid of the driest, woodiest part of the spear, and then peel the bottom half of each spear until the white flesh is exposed. The spears look prettier, and the net loss of weight is less than 30 percent.

As long as I stirred frequently, the pieces ended up uniformly bright green. However, they were unevenly cooked—some had the crisp-tender texture I wanted, while others were still crunchy. What if I added a little water to the pan to allow them to steam, so they cooked through more evenly, but not so much that the added liquid washed away flavor? If I allowed the water to evaporate, no flavor would be lost at all.

I melted a tablespoon of butter in the skillet, added a couple of tablespoons of water and some salt (another downside of conventional steaming is that you can’t season as you cook), and covered the pan. After 2 minutes, the asparagus was bright green but still crunchy. I removed the lid and stirred occasionally until the pan was almost dry and the pieces were crisp‑tender, which took about another 2 minutes.

We add garlic and salt to the pan at the same time as water. These flavor the asparagus once the water evaporates.

This pan-steamed asparagus tasted great, but garlic would make it a little more interesting. I added a minced clove after I removed the lid, but it clumped since there wasn’t much fat in the pan. Next, I tried adding the garlic along with the water and salt. This helped the garlic distribute more evenly, and it cooked just enough to lose its raw edge.

I loved the dish’s ease and simplicity, so I set about creating a few variations that were just as quick and uncomplicated. Now I can celebrate the season with a variety of interesting asparagus dishes, all cooked in mere minutes.