Butchering Broccoli: It’s Not Just About the Florets

Today we’ll take you through the process of butchering your broccoli and show you the easiest way to store it for later.

The first step is to make sure you have a fully ripe stalk of broccoli to work with. For example, tune into our video to see Jeremy using a broccoli stalk comparable to the head of a demogorgon. Even if your crop isn’t quite as large as his, you’re still probably doing alright. What you’re looking for is a fully-formed floret that’s just beginning to separate out. Does that describe the broccoli you’re looking at? Great — let’s get into it:

Step 1: separate your stalk from your leaves and florets. Some of the larger leaves towards the bottom may be too tough for consumption. Toss those out, but keep the rest of the leaves; we’ll get to those later. To separate the florets, roughly chop them off of the stalk.

Step 2: Prepare 3 separate ziploc gallon-bags for storage.

Step 3: Take all of your florets (or “side shoots”) and start chopping them roughly with the knife perpendicular to the stalk. Store these florets in the first ziploc bag and use them later for stir-fries, soups, roasts, stuffing pillows, applying makeup, etc.

Step 4: Bunch all of your leaves together and roughly chop them, again with the knife perpendicular to the length of the leaves. Think it’s weird that you’re eating broccoli leaves while you’ve never seen them sold in the grocery store? Well, I did too. But here’s a fun life hack: broccoli is part of the Brassica family (the other members being kale, collard greens, bok choy, etc.), so they’re actually easy to saute and just as tasty to eat! Store these leaves in the second ziploc bag.

Step 5: The stalk. Cut off the bottom few inches of the stalk, which tend to be tough and woody. Discard this. Cut the rest of the stalk into thick coins — you’ll want to eat the part of the stalk that has a tender green core in the center and that is not surrounded by a woody wrapping. These are good to saute as well. Throw these into your third bag, then into the freezer, and you can have fresh broccoli year-round!