Steaming vegetables is a great way to preserve their texture and their nutrition and it won’t end in a soggy, gross side dish with your dinner. If you don’t have a steamer though and you’re in a pinch, grab a plate and a roll of aluminium foil. This trick from Food52 will get you steaming in no time.
It’s pretty simple: just take out a few lengths of aluminium foil and ball it up. Put them at the bottom of a pot that’s larger than the plate you want to steam the vegetables on. Add water to the pot just so the aluminium foil balls are covered (or a little less than covered). Put the plate with the veggies on top, and turn on the heat. That’s all there is to it: a quick, hacked-together steamer.
Food52 also notes that you could get the same effect with a mesh strainer laid across the rim of the pot — assuming you have one of those strainers with a long handle and a short hook on the other side so it won’t fall into the pot.
How to Hack a Steamer [Food52]
Comments
2 responses to “Make Your Own Steamer Basket With A Plate And Some Aluminium Foil”
Putting a (metal) salad colander full of veg over top of a pot of boiling water also works.
Pot? Boiling water? Who doesn’t use the microwave to steam vegetables? Quicker & less nutrients lost to water as you only need to use a tiny amount of water (no citation). All you need is a bowl and glad wrap.