It’s that time of the year again when asparagus shows up at our grocery store. I love the spears that I call “pencils” because they’re tasty and still a bit delicate. Sometimes I put them in a pan on the grill and sometimes I’ll cut them up and toss them in the wok.
But I was cooking a whole meal and wanted some fresh vegetables with a bit of acid flavor to complement pork chops with mashed potatoes and gravy (which I’ll write about in another post).
So I took a slightly different approach, I tossed them in a saute pan with a couple of glugs of Italian dressing. I was being lazy—the dressing had oil, vinegar and seasoning, everything I wanted for the asparagus. This is quick and easy way to enjoy fresh sautéed asparagus. And I was being cheap too. I bought the dressing at the dollar store.
Recipe: Sauteed Fresh Asparagus
Ingredients
- ½ lb fresh asparagus (a nice handful, about 8-10 spears per person)
- Italian salad dressing
Instructions
- Take out a medium sauté pan.
- Prep the asparagus. Mainly, rinse it a off and pat it dry.
- Then take hold of each spear near the bottom and snap it in two. It will break where it wants to and that’s the perfect place. Do NOT cut it—just snap it.
- Put sauté pan on burner over medium heat and add several good glugs of the dressing—about 3 or 4 tablespoons worth.
- Drop the asparagus into the pan and let it cook. Stir it around every couple of minutes.
- It’ll be done in maybe 6 to 8 minutes max. You want it to still have some crispness and “snap”. It will coat with the dressing and absorb some of the flavor.
- Remove from the pan and serve it. It’s that simple!
Preparation time: 5 minute(s)
Cooking time: 10 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 3
My rating 5 stars: ★★★★★ 1 review(s)
It doesn’t get any easier than this. Serve it as a side dish and enjoy it with your meal. This is so good that it got a double thumbs up and grin from Mrs. CB who loves asparagus more than I do.
Now if you ever want to do it on the grill, do the same approach but 1) use a pan that you don’t mind getting cruddy from the grill and 2) heat the pan and asparagus, then toss it crossways on the grill for a couple of minutes to get a bit of a char and then toss it back in the pan for a couple more minutes. Remove it before it gets too done.
The Cheap Bastid Test: This sauteed fresh asparagus was really cheap. I used maybe a half pound of asparagus which was $.99 a pound at the grocery store where we buy our produce. The dressing was a $1 for the whole bottle so let’s say that I used about an ounce of the 8 ounce bottle so that’s $.13. Total cost: $.63
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
