The Best Way to Blanch Vegetables

While working on our Green Bean Salad with Cherry Tomatoes and Feta recipe, we learned that blanching the green beans in heavily salted water seasons them inside and out and gives them a more concentrated flavor than blanching in water with more moderate amounts of salt. To see if we could apply this method to other vegetables we commonly blanch for salads and crudités, we cooked separate batches of asparagus, snap peas, and broccoli and cauliflower florets in 2 quarts of boiling water seasoned with ¼ cup of salt until the vegetables were just tender and had lost their raw bite, 2 to 3 minutes. We then drained them and shocked them in cold water to rinse off excess salt and prevent further cooking. Like the green beans, each vegetable was nicely seasoned throughout and had deeper flavor. Since salt is cheap, we'll be turning to this method again and again for blanched vegetables that really shine.