I think I’ve officially found my favorite way to prepare broccoli. THIS is why I love experimenting with food. By just using your intuition and some basic cooking principles, experimenting in the kitchen empowers you to break from the old ways of making something (steamed broccoli) and take your meals to the next level. I made this two nights in a row and shared it with roommates and friends and everyone couldn’t get enough.
Not convinced about broccoli yet? If the taste of this recipe doesn’t change your mind, the amazing health benefits will! Helen over at Well-Being Secrets put an incredible amount of research into this article.
Preheat your oven to 400. Break the head of broccoli up and put it all in a big bowl. Don’t worry about trying to get every piece the same size. The big ones taste different than the small ones after they cook, but I enjoyed the variety of flavors and textures in the end.
Load it up with extra virgin olive oil (I probably used a good tablespoon or so here), salt and pepper. I encourage you to not go too crazy with spices or herbs here until you try it first and see what broccoli should really taste like.
Similarly to baked kale, you’ve really got to get the oil and spices distributed over all the surface area. Use your hands to massage the oil all up on the broccoli until the “leaves” have a nice shine on them.
Spread it out evenly on a cookie sheet.
Bake it at 400 degrees for roughly 10 minutes or when you see the broccoli start to brown up a bit. The amount of time you bake it depends on how firm or soft you want it to be. I personally like it just a hair on the crispy, brown side.
My favorite part about cooking broccoli this way is the texture of the “leaves” when it’s just a little tiny bit crunchy and you can taste the olive oil in the mini-crunch. SO GOOD.
