Liz’s Healthy Table Ep. 25: Eat Your Vegetables with Ana Sortun

Vegetables are an essential, colorful part of a healthy diet, but even the most nutritious options can feel uninspiring when reduced to steamed broccoli or plain raw carrots. Chef Ana Sortun brings vegetables to life with bold flavors and inviting techniques. I recently reconnected with Ana at the Healthy Kitchens Healthy Lives conference in California, where she demonstrated simple strategies for preparing vegetables so that kids—and adults—find them irresistible. In today’s podcast, Ana shares those practical culinary tips and recipes to help families enjoy more vegetables.

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Ana Sortun is a James Beard Award–winning chef, cookbook author, and mother, and she’s married to the owner of Siena Farms near Boston. Her experience cooking with farm-fresh ingredients gives her a distinct perspective on making vegetables appealing for families. In this episode we dig into her recipe for Cacik, a Turkish yogurt and vegetable dip, and she shares reliable methods for creating perfectly cooked broccoli, achieving true caramelized onions (patience is key), and introducing children to unusual vegetable varieties. We’re also hosting a giveaway for Ana’s newest cookbook, Soframiz—read on for details on how to enter.

Giveaway CLOSED: To enter the giveaway for Soframiz: Vibrant Middle Eastern Recipes from Sofra Bakery & Cafe, readers were asked to leave a comment at the end of the post with a favorite tip or recipe for encouraging family members to eat vegetables or to explain why they wanted the cookbook. A winner was chosen at random on April 18th. (U.S. entries only.)

For Ana, her first trip to Turkey was a culinary crossroads. “Everything I ate was rich, but nothing was heavy.”

Show highlights:

• Ana discusses feeding her daughter Siena and her philosophy for making vegetables a normal, unpressured part of family meals.
• Practical ways to make vegetables a regular, fuss-free element of mealtimes and why that approach works.
• A fresh method for preparing broccoli that delivers improved texture and flavor.
• Strategies for teaching kids to appreciate vegetables, including exposure to new and unusual varieties.
• How to remove the pressure from liking vegetables so parents don’t have to keep repeating “Eat your vegetables!”
• Ana’s story of how she met her husband and what it’s like being connected to a working farm.
• An introduction to Eastern Mediterranean culinary traditions and the role of spices in elevating simple produce.
• The secret to genuine caramelized onions: time and gentle heat.
• Ana’s journey from Paris to Turkey and the influence of those cuisines on her cooking.
• The difference between Cacik and Tzatziki and how yogurt-based dips can highlight vegetables.
• How tahini can be used in unexpected ways, such as in oatmeal sesame cookies.
• Background on the Healthy Kitchens Healthy Lives conference at the Culinary Institute of America and Ana’s newest cookbook, Soframiz.
• Ana’s favorite travel-cookbook inspiration: Turquoise, A Chef’s Travels in Turkey by Greg Malouf.

Oatmeal Sesame Cookies: multiple batches were made for a fundraising event to support Mazon.

Links and contact:

My email: [email protected]