Lemon Parmesan Asparagus

November 21, 2019
Heather

Asparagus is so fast and is so versatile. Use it as a side for any favorite dish.

Prep Time5 min
Cook Time5 min
Total Time10 min

Suitable for Diet
- Vegan
- Vegetarian

Ingredients

1 Bundle of Asparagus
1 TBS Olive Oil
1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
Juice of Half a Lemon
Pinch of Salt and Pepper
Sprinkle of Fresh Parmesan
2 TBS Fresh Chopped Parsley - Optional

Method

Prepare the Asparagus

Taking hold of the tip and butt of the asparagus, snap it in half, ensuring that the woody end is gone, or you may cut it. (See below for helpful tip)

In a Hot Pan

On high heat, add the olive oil to a hot pan and let it warm for a minute or so.

Add the asparagus, salt, pepper and garlic powder and mix it around to coat.

Let the asapragus cook on one side for 2 minutes or until slightly charred.

Add in the parsley if using, then turn over and cook the other side of the asparagus for another 2 minutes or until slightly charred.

Turn off the heat and squeeze the lemon juice over the asparagus, making sure to cover the majority of asparagus.

Give your asparagus a gentle stir to mix in the flavors and dish out onto a serving dish hot. Sprinkle on the parmesan.

Serve hot, enjoy!

Asparagus should be crunchy when served. Try not to over cook the dickens out of them.

I cus, you cus, we all cus for asparagus!

That’s not the saying….

So for some reason my children won’t eat salad, but if asparagus is being served, it’s game on! Needless to say, we eat a lot of asparagus at our house and not to toot my own horn, but I’ve gotten pretty good at making it delicious. I’ve even picked up a tip here and there along the way to help make the asparagus experience as pleasant as it can be. One of those tips is to not boil your asparagus. I used to boil ours and then pan fry them. They would turn into a big pile of mush and no one wants to eat mush.

Another Tip I’ve picked up along the way was actually from a youtube channel – Avant Garde Vegan. He’s a vegan chef with amazing vegan recipes if you’re into that sort of thing. The tip that he gave was to snap your asparagus instead of cut it. Have you ever been eating your asparagus only to run into the fibrous end that you just can’t seem to chew. So what happens then is that you have to awkwardly spit it out and leave it hiding somewhere on your plate or under a napkin. This is enough to put anyone off from eating asparagus on a date, or at a friends house or even in the comforts of home! Well, no more fibrous ends with this genius trick. What you do is before your asparagus is cooked, take the top half in one hand and the butt end in the other hand. Then simply bend the asparagus until is snaps apart. Expeliarmus! It’s just as good as magic.

It snaps the asparagus in the correct spot every time, leaving no fibrous ends to maul on. I have done this to my asparagus ever since learning this trick and I have never once had a bad asparagus experience since. Hallelujah! “There is a God, and he has a plan for us after all.”.

Let's get down to the nitty gritty

So let’s get down to the cookin’! Asparagus, like I said previously, should only take a few minutes to cook. Really all your doing is warming it up and cooking it a bit so that it’s got a nice char on both sides if possible. You don’t have to be super anal about flipping each stalk over or anything, just do your best with a spatula and you’re golden.

My first big tip is after you heat up your pan, put your asparagus in, drizzle some olive oil and add your seasonings except your lemon juice and cheese. Once this is done, make sure that your asparagus gets covered by your oil and seasonings by simply using your spatula to cover it all as best you can. Then, let it sit. DON’T TOUCH IT! Seriously, leave it alone for a few minutes. Let that one side of the asparagus get nice and cooked so that your pan leaves some nice char marks on it. Don’t burn it, but darken those bad boys up a bit, then, AND ONLY THEN! Can you use your spatula to stir them up and help flip them over as best you can. Again, don’t worry if they don’t all flip, just do the best you can and it will all be alright thanks to Jesus and his Grace. He cares about ya even in the kitchen!

Now that we got all that worked out, let’s talk about the lemon juice. There’s lots of different times to add in your lemon juice, and honestly anytime really is fine. Experience shows however that my favorite time to add the lemon juice is a minute or two before you’re done cooking your asparagus. The lemon zip keeps it’s freshness and the flavor is fully incorporated throughout the asparagus without getting lost to the heat by over cooking it. #protip #don’tIfeelcoolusing# #actuallynotIfeelolderandstupid #gladweclearedthatup

Last but not least the cheese, ah the cheese. This is one of the best parts of this dish and really takes your veg from good to stinking great. Again, there are many times that you can add the cheese to your dish, but the best time in my opinion is when the heat is off and you’ve just gotten done cooking your asparagus. The reason for this is that if you add your cheese to your asparagus while it’s cooking, then the cheese melts and most of it slips off the asparagus and sticks to the bottom of the pan. Now, if you like burnt cheese or cooked cheese then this can actually be a great thing, but if you want it on your asparagus, add the cheese last. Also, another tip is that you don’t have to mix the cheese into the asparagus. Just sprinkle it on the top and it will melt into the veg, incorporate itself on it’s own, before you serve it.

Feel free to fancy the look of this up. Grab some of those lemon slices and top them off. Sprinkle some fresh parsley and maybe even some more parmesan. Make this your own dish. Love what you eat and enjoy your veggies. In my life I’ve really tried to make veggies and fruits the focus of my meals, and the carbs, fats and proteins are what works around them. This is a great way to really feel like you’ve accomplished a well rounded vegetable dish and keep that vision in mind.

The transition from focusing on carbs and proteins (macro nutrients) to veggies and fruits (micro nutrients) has actually been a lot easier of a transition than I previously thought it would be. For instance, because veggies and fruit don’t take that long to cook, meal time is a lot faster and less stressful. Think about it. For breakfast, I cut up strawberries, throw on some blueberries, open up a few mandarin oranges and cut up a few apples. Slap it on a plate next to a half a slice of toast with peanut butter on it and I’m a happy, and seriously full girl. You might not believe it, but lately, 70% of what I eat is either a fruit or a veggie. I think so often that we focus solely on our macro nutrients. How many carbs are we getting today, or what’s my fat count at? How about flipping that focus around. Did you know that on average a person is supposed to consume 5-9 servings of fruits and veggies in a day. I up the ante to 10, why not! Think about it, are you actually consuming this many veggies and fruits a day? I wasn’t. When I realized this that’s when I changed my focus to having the main part of my meal to fruits and veg. Think about all the obesity issues, health issues, and allergy issues in the world. Most of them come because of the macro nutrients we consume. Shouldn’t that tell us something? And maybe instead of popping that supplement, we should actually consume our nutrients from an actual source that our bodies can use. Ok, I can talk a lot about this topic and can get pretty carried away…If you are more interested in this topic click here to read an article I wrote about my eating method.