This Is The Easiest Hack For Blanching Greens

Don't you hate when the answer is staring you right in the face? Like, when you're making your morning coffee and thinking about what to do for dinner. Kale, maybe? People keep talking about it — maybe you should make some. But blanching greens takes so long, you think, as you use your electric kettle to pour water over your coffee grinds. If only a Marvel Avenger would swoop into your kitchen and take the task off your hands, so you could focus on the rest of dinner. Enter Melissa Clark, food writer for the New York Times and possible Avenger-in-disguise, with a hack for blanching greens. 

Clark recently posted her hack on Instagram, and the entire process she uses to blanch greens can be summed up in under 15 words: "Boiling water ... Let it sit 'til the water cools, and then drain," (via Instagram). The video (in which Clark charmingly explains to someone off-screen, "I'm doing a video! Of my greens-blanching technique!") shows how easy blanching your greens can be. No more patiently waiting for a pot of salted water to come to a boil for fifteen seconds of use (and then quickly washing it so you can reuse it for something else). Clark puts her greens in a colander and pours just-boiled water from her electric kettle over them. As Thanos would say, you'll be done in a snap.

Martha Stewart, who is obviously the Tony Stark of the cooking and lifestyle world, has something to say about what to do with those blanched greens afterward (via Martha Stewart). Though she uses the (now old-fashioned) method of blanching leafy greens in a pot of boiling water, she cleverly saves the greens she doesn't need straightaway. Once your greens are cool enough to touch, squeeze all the excess water out of them, and lay them flat on a baking sheet to dry. When they've completely cooled, store the greens in an airtight container, and refrigerate for up to four days.

Between the hack and the storage advice, Clark and Stewart have ensured that about three minutes of work will yield four days of results in the kitchen. Tougher veggies, like carrots and broccoli, might not benefit from Clark's quick-blanch method, especially if you're trying to soften them up. But the hack is perfect for leafy greens, like spinach, Swiss chard, collard greens, and kale — all marvel-ous sources of iron, man.