How to Learn to Like Vegetables

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By Triune
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sauteed vegetables

You know all the many health benefits of eating vegetables, but how to get them down without gagging? Now that's the problem! Here are some ways you can introduce your tastebuds to the many and delicious flavors of vegetables.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

vegetables you would like to try
willingness to experiment

Step 1

You may find you prefer if a vegetable is packaged and sold a certain way. Try vegetables in different forms. You can find things like carrots or green beans three ways: fresh, frozen, or canned. They can taste very different. Also try different cuts of vegetables. Crinkle cut carrots may taste awful to you, whereas matchstick cut carrots may taste great, cooked the same way. Texture is sometimes a bigger factor than taste.
Step 2

One of the best ways to bring out the flavors in vegetables is roasting. The natural sugars carmelize and the vegetables become sweeter and more palatable. Some people will only eat them this way because of the flavor it brings out! Roasting is as simple as tossing vegetables with olive oil and spices of your choice and throwing them in the oven or toaster oven. There are many recipes out there for roasting.
Step 3

You may like vegetables better if you eat them mixed into other things, rather than eating them by themselves. For instance, you can add extra cut up celery, onions, or fennel to ready-to-cook stuffings. Celery and onions also add a good crunch to tuna, pasta, and other salads. Add some cut up cooked veggies to storebought soups. Put some romaine lettuce and tomato on your favorite sandwich at home and feel like you're eating out.
Step 4

Try a vegetable you've never had before. Kids usually don't like to try new vegetables, but since you are an adult it is on your terms now, so have fun with it! Every time you go food shopping, pick one vegetable you haven't tried, find out how to cook it (some supermarkets offer recipe cards for free in the produce department) and you may find something you really like.
Step 5

You could experiment with cooking times. Perhaps you hate cooked broccoli because it was always mushy when you had it as a child. Try cooking it for a shorter time and you may find it tastes better to you. Many times texture is more of a turnoff than taste, but we often think it is the taste we don't like.
Step 6

A different seasoning or sauce can really perk up vegetables. Try a little brown sugar and butter with carrots. It makes them taste like candy. Try a marinade from a bottle or a recipe. Steamed vegetables with a little buttermilk ranch and rolled up in a tortilla is a nice way to warm up.
Step 7

If you are really having a hard time with the taste and texture of vegetables, you could try hiding them in your favorite foods. There are some books and websites on this type of cooking that mainly involve pureeing vegetables and mixing them into recipes before they are cooked, adding nutrients but hiding the taste and texture so that even kids don't know there are vegetables in their food. Jessica Seinfeld and Missy Chase Lapine (the Sneaky Chef) both have several great recipe books available.