How to Make Riced Vegetables and Other Vegetable Basics

Mashing

Mashing vegetables is pretty straightforward. You soften the veggies by either boiling them in salted water, roasting them until soft in the oven, or steaming them until they are tender. If you have an electric pressure cooker like an instant pot, you can use that to soften them. Then use a potato masher, ricer, a fork, or a food processor to puree them until they are smooth. Add in some healthy fats and some herbs or seasonings, and you have a bowl of delicious creamy vegetable mash.

Some great veggies for mashing are sweet potatoes, squashes, turnips, rutabagas, carrots, beets, parsnips, cauliflower, and celeriac. You can pair those sweet roots with curry and spice, or with warming cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg, or stick with just garlic, salt, and pepper. You can gently toast your smashed garlic in warmed olive oil, butter, ghee, or coconut oil, and then stir it into your mash.

Riced Vegetables

So how to make riced vegetables? Cruciferous vegetables and root vegetables are firm enough to rice well and hold their shape. The basic process is this: wash and chop your veggies into chunks that will fit through the tube on your food processor. Process (you may want to use the grating blade) in pulses until the veggies are the size and texture of grains of rice. You can use the stems and core of the cauliflower and broccoli for ricing as well — don’t throw them out! Carrots and beets can be processed with the peel on if you prefer. Butternut squash needs to be peeled first.

Cruciferous veggies: cauliflower, broccoli, romanesco, brussels sprouts, cabbage.

Root vegetables: sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, parsnips.

To try if you like to experiment: butternut squash, daikon radish, rutabaga or turnip, jicama, celeriac, zucchini, plantains.

That's it!

To use, you can pan-fry the rice in some healthy fats and season with salt, herbs, and spices. Or you can bake the rice with a few teaspoons of oil and a pinch of salt at 350 degrees F for around 10 minutes.  You will want to watch the texture — some veggies cook faster than others and you want them tender, not turned to mush!

You can freeze your prepped rice for quick meals. The texture will be better if you toast them first — spread on a cookie sheet, drizzle with healthy fat and a pinch of salt, and put them in the oven at 350 degrees for about ten minutes. Make sure they are completely cool before you pack them into freezer containers. You can freeze them in glass jars, plastic freezer containers, or ziplock freezer bags. If you use bags, press out as much air as possible and flatten the rice so that you can stack your bags. You don’t have to thaw them much to use them, unless you're going to turn them into a crust (see below!).

Try it as a base for rice bowls, stir-fry, curries, risotto, tabouleh, pilaf, or added to soup. You can stick with one kind at a time or mix it up for color and flavor.

Noodling

Making noodles out of vegetables is a very simple process if you have a tool called a spiralizer. Simply peel and spin. You need vegetables that are solid all the way through and large enough to fit on the prongs of your spiralizer. The best veggies for spiralizing are zucchini, summer squash, and butternut squash. They have a subtle flavor and good texture. If you are using butternut squash, peel and use the solid neck of the veggie and use the bulb (where the seeds were) for roasting or ricing. These veggies also work well but have a slightly stronger flavor to work with: carrots, sweet potatoes, beets, parsnips, rutabaga, celeriac, and cucumbers. Cucumber spirals work very well in cold salads.

Depending on the dish you are making, you can use the noodles raw and pour hot sauce over them. This preserves the most crunch to your noodles

Cooking the noodles tenderizes them, and makes them easier to digest. For a small amount, you can sauté them in a little good fat. For a large amount, it is best to roast them. Spread the noodles evenly on a baking sheet, drizzle with a little good fat and sprinkle with a pinch of salt, and roast at 375 degrees F. Check and toss them every ten minutes and when they've reached your desired tenderness (probably between 15 and 30 minutes), pull them out and add your sauce.

For firmer veggies (the root vegetables, and butternut squash) you may want to cover your roasting tray with foil for the first 10 or 15 minutes. This will help the veggies steam a bit and get more tender. Then remove the foil to let the excess moisture evaporate for the next 15 or so minutes.

If you don’t have a spiralizer, you can try a julienne blade on a mandoline, or a vegetable peeler to produce long wide noodles.

You can leave your noodles long or stretch them out and snip them into more manageable lengths with a pair of kitchen shears. 

Roasting

Roasting brings out the sweetness of a vegetable. Roasting can be your major meal prep step, as roasted veggies can be a base for many other meals during the week (cold salad, hash, side dishes).

The basic process: choose your veggies, wash and peel them or cut them into chunks that are about the same size. Drizzle with good fat and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Roast at 375 or 400 degrees for 15 minutes at a time, stirring them up and checking for your desired doneness. If you like a little more caramelization and crispness, go for the higher temp. Different veggies will take different lengths of time. As you check and stir them, you can pull off the ones that are done and spread out the ones you have left. 

You can add some spice or aromatics while you roast: cayenne or cinnamon, curries, chili powder and cumin, garlic, shallots, onions, or leeks.  Then you  can toss some fresh herbs with your veggies when they come out of the oven: fresh parsley, cilantro, dill, basil, chopped sage or thyme, oregano, tarragon. You can also drizzle them with a finishing oil and something tangy to flavor them when they come out: high-quality olive oil, toasted sesame oil, avocado oil, lemon juice, or balsamic vinegar. You can finish them with something crunchy too: a handful of toasted nuts or seeds.

Pizza-ing

Here’s a basic recipe for making a cauliflower crust. If you like it, you could try it with some of your other riced veggies. A cooked crust can also be cooled, wrapped in foil, and frozen for a quick meal later. No need to thaw—just top with cheese and veggies and bake at 400 degrees F until the cheese bubbles. 

• 1 head of cauliflower, riced and steamed until it is tender, or use frozen and thawed cauliflower rice. One head is about 2 pounds, which is about 6 cups of cauliflower rice.
• 1 egg , beaten
• 1/3 cup soft goat cheese (chèvre)
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano, or basil or another herb you enjoy with pizza (sage with a mushroom and bacon pizza, anyone?)
• pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF. 
2. Put your cooked rice (if you steamed it, let it cool for a minute) into a thin, clean dishtowel. Wrap it up, twist, and squeeze as much excess moisture out as you can.
3. Put your dry rice into a large bowl and add the egg, goat cheese, and spices. Mix it very well with a fork or your hands.
4. Press the dough into a circle on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Your circle should be about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. If you want, you can build up the edges a bit to hold your toppings.
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes at 400 degrees F, until the crust is dry and golden. Use the parchment paper to flip the crust over.  Bake the other side until it dries out, about another 10-15 minutes.
6. Add your sauce, cheese, meat, and veggies to the crust and return the pizza to the over. Bake for another 5-10 minutes, until the cheese is hot and bubbly. You don’t want to add too much sauce or too many toppings or the crust will get soggy, so exercise some restraint.