The Best Brussels Sprouts Recipe | Easy Healthy Side Dish

Hey guys, it's Dani and we have just wrapped up another Facebook Live that I needed to share with you guys because this recipe is a must-have. This is brussels sprouts for people who think they don't like brussels sprouts and when I tell you this is the best brussels sprout recipe you will ever eat. It's the kind of recipe that will blow your mind, it will blow your brussels sprout mind, whatever that means. So check it out, let me know what you think and I'll see you back here soon. Bye! Hello, hello my friends! Coming at you live on Friday evening here in New Jersey, pitch black outside. We're trying something different today because a lot of you guys in my last newsletter, I wrote to you guys and you said you wanted me to try some different times for the Facebook Live. So ask and ye shall receive, tis the season. So I'm here today guys, I want to share with you guys a recipe for brussels sprouts and the whole thing about these brussels sprouts is they are called brussels sprouts for people who believe that they don't like brussels sprouts. Now just for the record, all credit given, this recipe is from a cookbook called The Healthy Kitchen. This is a cookbook I bought like 10 years ago, a long time ago when I was really trying to transition to eating better and making changes in the kitchen and this is Dr. Andrew Weil and I bought this cookbook and this recipe caught my eye, I think the name of it caught my eye. And I have to tell you, I made it for the first time like 10 years ago and it has stood out in my mind ever since so I was like, y'all need to know about this recipe. So that's what we're going to be making today. I'm going to pull up my phone really quick so I can see comments coming in. Guys, as you sign in, please come down to the comments below, say hello, let me know who's watching and where you are watching from and we will get this party started, okay? So behind me, I have a big old pot of boiling water and that's because the basic technique for these Brussels sprouts is that we are going to boil them, it's basically like we're going to blanch them and then we're going to finish them off with some flavorings with the oil and everything we're going to mix in, okay guys? So let's get those into the pot and then I'll show you how I prep the Brussels sprouts because they're going to be in there for about 5 minutes. So I'm just going to, you can even stay right there, I'm just going to gently, slowly let these go right into the pot. So that's about a pound and a half of Brussels sprouts, I'm going to put my timer on for 5 minutes. We're going to let those soften up and they're going to become a nice, beautiful, bright green color. See? So they're just going to go like 4 or 5 minutes, not a super long time. You got some people saying hi. Okay, see they're not coming up on my phone yet. I'm going to refresh. Are you on Wi-Fi? Oh shoot. Yeah. I think so. Yeah, okay. Oops, okay. I see you coming in, guys. Yay, yay, yay. Okay, we have, oh my gosh. Oops, okay. Oh my gosh. We have Supriya, Cheryl, Poonam, Katie from Atlantis, oh my gosh, Sagi. You even came on Snapchat. We chat all the time. He told me his name. Sagi. His name. It's like 1 in the morning for you right now. And you stayed up to watch. Thank you. Thanks for being here, guys. You're going to be happy though because you're all going to want this recipe. Brussels sprouts are super in season right now and these are great for a holiday table. Katie, you were asking me about holiday brunch ideas. These would be a beautiful addition to a dinner or a brunch. I'm telling you, these are like mind-blowing Brussels sprouts, okay? So all I did to the Brussels sprouts that are in the pot was, these are little guys, you trim off the bottom if they're dry, right? Usually they are. If you buy them off the stock, those stems are usually going to be dry. You just trim them off and then cut them in half, okay? Simple, simple. That is what I did with all of the Brussels sprouts. Can you see that? That are in the pot. So this is the way you would prep the Brussels sprouts before you get them in the pot, okay, guys? Trim. Slice in half. Now, the other ingredients that are going to go into ... Yes, Christina. Yay! Thank you for joining. I love having you here live. I love doing this live stuff. I like it so much that I'm doing it on a Friday night because I'm like, I got nothing better to do. I just want to hang out with you guys. Come in here and cook. Okay. Now, let me show you the other triage of ingredients. Did you wash them before you cut them? Of course. Always wash. Always wash them. Let me show you the other ingredients that are going to make these blow your mind. Come on in, Bang. So you're going to use a hunk of fresh Parmesan cheese that I've grated down. I'll show you. I have it in the fridge. We're using lots of fresh garlic. That's here. Then I have red pepper flakes. So it's got a good kick to it. A good amount of salt. And we have fresh grated nutmeg, which I'm also going to show you guys how to do. But this combination, guys, it's the, honestly, this combination will make any type of leafy green taste delicious. Another great addition to this would be a little bit of anchovy. You can melt it in with the garlic and the oil, little, those little things that take simple ingredients and give them like, whoa, flavor, very umami, depth, earthy, deliciousness. Okay. So let me get my cheese out of the fridge too. Oh, I'm hungry. And we're going to give those Brussels sprouts one more minute and then we're going to drain them out. But I want to show you guys. So I showed you how I prepped that. Now what I'm going to show you is the garlic. You see how I got rough chopped garlic in there? I already peeled my garlic. And then guys, all you do with your knife is you just come in with your garlic and give it a rough chop, pull it back to the center, hit it from another direction. You want me to talk about my fingers? Is that what you say? So look at the fingers. I, you know, if there's one thing I could beg you guys to do to make your cooking easier and like faster, quite honestly, is learn how to use your knife, right? Because once you learn how to use a knife, everything happens faster in the kitchen and it makes it more, um, you know, like doable and like desirable because it doesn't feel like a nuisance. Okay. I'm going to leave that for a second because my Brussels sprouts were kind of small, so I want to drain those out because you don't, you really just want to get that. You want them to get tender, but you see how there's still a bright green color. That's what we want. So I'm going to take these over to the sink and I'm just going to drain them into my colander. Are you with me, babe? Yeah. I did a little hot mess. Yeah. It's a little messy. Welcome to real life in the clean and delicious kitchen. All right. Give yourself a little mini facial. We're going to use this very same pot to season them up. Okay? So I'm going to let them sit there for a minute while we finish up these ingredients. Wachana. Wachana? Wachana. Hey, Danny, you're watching me live. Made your rosemary chicken last night. So good. Awesome. I'm so happy to hear that. I have to, I actually have a couple of chicken recipes that I want to share with you guys. Um, in the new year. Hey guys, which reminds me. If you guys have any thing that you're like really want to see me do for January for the new year, which I know is, you know, after the holidays, we're all going to be really ready to get it clean and delicious. Let me know down in the comments below because I'm working on that production schedule right now. So I love, um, I'd love to make sure that I'm hitting some of the things that you want to be seeing. Okay. So we've got our chopped garlic. That was for our Brussels sprouts. Boom. Um, this is fresh grated Parmesan cheese. You can buy it pre-grated, but like with all ingredients, guys, the fresher you can buy them, the more whole you combine, the more delicious they're going to taste. So what I like to do is buy it like this in the block. And then I use this microplane and you just shed it and it's literally shred it and it's like snow. You see this too, too, too, too, too. And these hard cheeses, guys, these are also great on a cheese plate. So leaving like a nice hunk of cheese like this in your fridge, it lasts a long time. It's a hard cheese, so they don't go bad quickly. And they're nice to like slice up with some fresh fruit. Or if you like, you had somebody last minute dropping by, you could slice this up with a little bit of fresh fruit and maybe some nuts or something and just make a very simple, delicious cheese plate. And like I said, it lasts in the fridge for a long time. Super versatile. Okay. And then finally, our nutmeg. And for the nutmeg, you can buy pre-graded nutmeg, but Jennifer Santana is watching with my kids right now. Hi, Jen. Thank you for watching my kids so I could do this. Whenever you're using a fresh nutmeg, you need so much more flavor because bang, come in close really quick. Can you see all those little squigglies throughout the nutmeg? Those are the essential oils in the nutmeg. So it's super fresh, it's super fragrant, and it's super flavorful. So when you can get it fresh like this and you just get a little mini microplane, I leave this right by my coffee maker because I like to put this on top of like if I make a cappuccino or something. And you just shred it in, and it's just like the cheese. It's just mini. And it's very, very soft. And nutmeg is such a great addition to greens, vegetables, and oh, we have Laura O live too. Hey, Laura. Welcome. We're making brussel sprouts for people who don't think they like brussel sprouts. So pay attention. No, I'm just kidding. Okay. So. You should follow nutmeg. Okay. So I think I finished it. Fresh nutmeg, do it yourself, very flavorful. It has this nutty flavor to it. So it's a great complement to the Parmesan cheese and to any leafy greens. So I first learned that, that was like an aha moment for me. I didn't know that you could use nutmeg when cooking savory foods, but it really adds such a great, especially this time of year with the holidays, guys, put a little in your greens and you really surprise people. It's a great way to take simple foods and give them that wow factor. You know, like you could put it into a frittata if you were doing like a frittata with some kale and cauliflower, do a little bit of nutmeg. It just gives it that little bit of, hmm, what is that? You know, it's a good conversation starter. Okay. Come back on over to the stove here. And I've never thought of combining nutmeg with Brussels. So clever, can't wait to try this, maybe for Christmas. It's such a good Christmas recipe. Do it, do it, do it. Let me bring my phone over with me. So what we're going to do here, guys, hi, let me get all my ingredients, is I'm going to start by getting a couple tablespoons of olive oil into the pot, okay? And we want that to heat up. Now, I'm using about a pound and a half of Brussels sprouts, so that's probably not even two tablespoons of oil. And the red pepper flakes, okay? Give it a stir around. This will happen very quickly. Basically, with garlic like this, now I'm going to turn my heat up. Now that we cooled the pan down, I'll turn the heat up a little bit, so I just want a light sizzle, right? We do want to get the garlic lightly browned, but definitely not burnt. How good does that look? I mean, just the garlic and the oil and the red pepper flakes alone will make your house smell like love. Let me take a look here. I'm going to tap it into my comments section. Okay. I like to reduce the oil and add balsamic instead. Great tip, Sandra. Thank you for sharing that. Stephanie from Arizona just joined us. Yasna from Florida, Newport. Hi, Dani, I love your recipes. They're simple and delicious. Vanessa from Nashville. Hey, guys, thank you guys for joining me. This is an a-ha moment. I only use nutmeg in carrot cake. I know. It was an a-ha moment for me, too, and I first learned about adding it to greens. You know who does it all the time? Rachael Ray. I don't know if you guys ever watch Rachael Ray, but she always adds nutmeg to her greens. Okay. Stay right there. Look at what's going on in the pot, babe. Now, what's going to happen next is I'm going to add those Brussels sprouts that, remember, we already parboiled them, so they're already pretty much cooked through. They're tender, and you'll know they're not overdone because they still retain that bright green color. Can you see how beautiful the color is? Oh, it just smells so good. All right, so that's going in my pan with a little bit. I'm putting that nutmeg in. That's about a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg. It's strong, so you don't need a lot. And I'm adding a teaspoon of salt, guys. Here's the key with home cooking. If you want your food to take amazing, don't be afraid of salt, right? When you want to worry about salt is when you're eating a lot of highly processed, pre-made foods, frozen foods, canned foods. That's where you get yourself in trouble with salt. When you're cooking real, fresh, whole foods, it's very hard to go over with the salt. Okay? Let's pull this in. And like I said before, Brussels sprouts are in season right now, so this would be a great addition to any holiday menu, brunch or dinner. They'd be great as a buffet, too, because they're delicious room temperature. So basically, once all of my Brussels sprouts are coated in the oil and the spices, I'm turning my heat way down because I don't want to overdo it with the garlic. I am going to sprinkle in that grated Parmesan cheese. That's like snow. So it's about a half a cup of fresh grated Parmesan cheese. Give that a stir in. And you guys can see, if you were making this for a dinner for somebody, let's say you were going to make this as part of a dinner menu, you could parboil those Brussels sprouts and then leave them in the fridge so you have all the dirty work done. Prep all of these other ingredients that are going in the pot, and then when it's dinner time or when it's time to serve, you cut out all those steps and you can do this totally last minute. Okay. I'm going to grab a pan if you want to get a close-up of what's going on in that beautiful pot. If anybody has any questions, my dear, now is the time to ask. Someone asked about doing it vegan without the cheese. Nutritional yeast? Yeast, yeah. What else? Was it almond flour, did you say? I don't know about the almond flour. I think the nutritional yeast could work. I'm going to shut this off. Let's bring it over to the counter. I'm not feeling the idea of the almond flour. I don't think that's going to get you where you're trying to go. I'm not sure if she said exactly almond flour. She said something almond. But I do think you could do the nutritional yeast. If you're trying to get a cheesy flavor and you're not doing cheese, I'm thinking that would work for you. Okay, let's plate this up. Friday night cooking in the Clean and Delicious kitchen. Oh my gosh. This recipe gets me very excited. And what I'm going to do, guys, is right at the end, we're going to... Okay. A few points I want to point out about these. When you boil them up, you want to make sure that you get them out of the pot while they're tender but still vibrant, right? Because remember, when we're trying to get people to love their vegetables, giving people overcooked Brussels sprouts that are basically gray is not going to get us where we're trying to go. We got to keep it beautiful and fresh and vibrant because that's what gets people excited about eating... Veggies. Fresh, beautiful foods like this. Okay. Oh. I haven't made this in so long. I'm so excited. Oh no. Oh my. The flavor is insane. Oh, and Jake. Ooh, it's got a good kick. Okay, guys. Now, just because tis the season, we're going to put a little more cheese over the top, okay? Okay. Tis the season for a little extra cheese because it looks like snow. La, la, la. OMG. Why does this make me so happy? La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. As I'm looking at this, when I think about the holidays, you know what else I think would be great if you really wanted to go crazy? Like a little chopped up walnut or a pecan if you wanted to add another layer to it. Because you know sometimes with the holidays, you just want to go all the way. Slide it into home base. Take it all the way. So, anyway. This, my friends, this is the recipe for Brussels sprouts for people who think they don't like Brussels sprouts, okay? I'm going to take a taste and I'm going to describe it to you. Yeah. If you like this video, please share it. Sandra, I love your recipes and I always try them on my barbecue instead of the stove. I cook on a barbecue grill now. I love the barbecue smell. Oh, awesome. I've never tried that. Okay. I want to make sure I'm not missing anybody's comments. All right. Let's give them a try, guys. Let's get in there. I really wish we had smell-o-vision, right? Whatever you're making for dinner tonight, just do garlic, red pepper flakes, olive oil, the parmesan cheese and the nutmeg. I don't care what you make. Just add it to that and just so you can get this experience. I've got the red pepper in my throat. The Brussels sprouts are cooked perfectly. They're tender but still al dente. That's the way I like them. Okay. Oh, my gosh. I can't wait for you guys to try this. Okay. So, listen up, my friends. Friday night, come down to the comments below. Let me know what days and times you want me to do Facebook lives. We're doing them right now on Fridays. We usually do them at 1130 in the morning. I tried to do a different time so I can see if other people that can't usually make it could make it so we can get a little variation, get everybody on here live. But I do want to hear from you guys. Also, if you have any ideas or requests for the new year, down in the comments below, let me know about them. Okay, guys? Thank you guys so much for joining me here tonight. Hey, guys. If you have a classic dish that you want Dana to clean up, let her know. Yes. That's another thing I'm going to be focusing on the new year is taking some of the classics and cleaning them up. Like, you know, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken noodle soup, chicken parmesan, whatever, meatloaf. Some of the classics because I get a lot of requests for that. And so I want to make sure that we have options because I do think, you know, especially with kids, I find this with kids too. I think about kids. That's another video I want to do. Like kids' snacks and, you know, sometimes we want to have those, the classic dishes and like how can we do it a little bit more clean and delicious, right? So we're going to be doing a bit of that in the new year as well. So thank you guys for joining me. I am going to wrap it up here. We'll see you. This will be up on YouTube tomorrow and make sure you tune in on Monday because we'll be sharing a brand new recipe with you guys. It's going to be a beef and broccoli stir fry. Okay. So exciting. Thank you for joining. I'll see you all soon. Bye.