This principle is one if not the the most frequently used. It can be applied to about any vegetable or combination of vegetables to produce a tasty result. You can almost say that’s it’s a kind of default option, especially if you want a meal on the table quickly.

The technical definition is to cook something quickly at a relatively high heat in a small amount of  fat. Although some are against the idea of using olive oil for sautéing, this is always my preferred choice because of the flavour and nutritional benefits of oil. The trick is to make sure the temperature stays just below the ‘smoke point’ of the oil so the beneficial compounds don’t decompose.  

When we sauté something we are applying the principle of caramelisation. When a vegetable is exposed to heat, the starches in that vegetable will begin caramelise. As they do so new flavour molecules are created. The darker you go the more intense and deep the flavour will be. The best example is to think of the difference between a raw red pepper and one that’s had a good roasting in the oven. The sweetness and depth of the latter is a completely different thing to the raw version.

Whatever you are sautéing it will always need to be cut into smaller pieces or slices. Cooking larger pieces of veggies or other ingredients like meat or fish is pan-frying or pan-roasting. We shall cover the latter in another post because this is also an excellent principle for preparing veggies. 

Say, for instance, you’ve got a carrot, a pepper and an onion. To ‘sauté these, first you’d slice it all up so it’s all in the same relative shape and thickness. You’d then put your sauté pan on the heat and once hot, add a splash of olive oil (or another good quality oil) followed immediately by the sliced vegetables. When sautéing anything you need to keep it in fairly constant motion by:

1. Grabbing the pan firmly with your dominant hand and making a small flick of the wrist to turn over everything in the pan;

2. Using a palette or spoon to move things around and turn over. 

Along the way you’d then add seasoning, which can also include umami giving ingredients like soy sauce, fish sauce, anchovies, etc. It doesn’t have to be an Asian style meal for e.g. soy sauce to be applicable. Simply think about these ingredients as ‘umami’. They are just as important as salt — if not more important when it comes to making vegetables mega delicious. 

>> READ OUR GUIDE TO THE MOST COMMON UMAMI INGREDIENTS HERE <<

An alternative method, if you really want to get in there with some serious caramelisation, i.e. charring you can start out your veggies without any fat on a really hot pan. You then add the fat once the veggies have the desired level of caramelisation or ‘burntness’ to finish cooking them to the desired texture (how hard or soft).

This works particularly well for veggies that would otherwise have a tendency to absorb a lot of oil, such as aubergine, zucchini or mushrooms (I know, mushrooms aren’t biologically speaking a veg, but that’s how we’ll consider here).

Peppers, onions and carrots also benefit greatly from this kind of treatment. Please note that this works best on a heavy pan that has steel or iron in the make-up. You can use an aluminium teflon pan, but then just ensure you are on top of not overheating it before adding the veggies. Teflon gives off nasty compounds at high temperatures. In fact, we strongly recommend that you get rid of all you teflon pans because teflon is extremely toxic, and invest in ones that aren’t coated in it. It doesn’t have to be expensive, and it is really, really worth it. 

Sweating 

We just want to mention sweating in the same breath as sautéing, as they are two sides of the same coin. Sweating simply happens at a lower heat for a longer time depending on the result you want.

The main difference is that with sweating you don’t want whatever vegetable you’re cooking to take any colour — or you want them to take colour very slowly for flavour to develop without any risk of charring if you are sweating e.g. onions for a stew base. 

Sweating is also often used to make the based e.g. red onions to which you’ll add spinach or another leafy green. You’d then sweat those onions at a medium heat so that they don’t start to colour but rather turn translucent before you add the spinach, which will cook much quicker than the onions.