This artichoke stir-fry is a simple way to add more vegetables to your diet.

You can cook artichokes  in several ways, they are a “super vegetable” rich in lot of nutrients. An artichoke stir-fry is also great to make a frittata, and you can blend it with some milk or single cream to make a nice artichoke cream to make pasta.

Artichokes comes from the Middle East, they were already used in Egypt thousands of year ago. In fact, many of the classic Italian recipes that use artichokes were brought to Italy by the Jewish community. In Rome, the best place to eat artichokes is the Jewish Ghetto.

Artichokes: health facts

A good source of vitamins, iron, magnesium and dietary fibers, artichokes can be eaten either raw or cooked and are a great ally for our liver and digestive health.

Eating artichokes is a very good way of adding fiber to the daily diet. You can use them in a lot of recipes and a good way to prepare it is in a simple stir-fry that you can keep handy for busy weekdays when you don’t feel like spending a lot of time cooking.

Artichoke stir-fry: meal prep tips

You can follow this recipe and keep the artichokes in a air-tight container up to a week in the fridge. If you buy them in batch you can clean and cook them on Sunday and have it ready-to-use all week long. 

This artichoke stir-fry can be used to prepare a tasty frittata, a stir-fried pasta, or a simple side dish for a fish or meat main, or you can use it to prepare this simple and delicious artichokes quiche.

You can whizz them in a blender with some milk of choice and prepare a nice artichoke cream to make risotto or pasta. In fact this can be a quick fix for days when you don’t really want to spend more than 10min cooking.

Artichokes stir-fry: Ingredients

• cleaned and washed artichokes
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic
• a bunch of parsley or lesser calamint (know in Italy as mentuccia romana – roman mint)
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt, pepper
• cayenne pepper(optional)

Method

Step 1
Cut the artichokes lengthwise in slices

Step 2
Heat the pan and pour oil garlic and cayenne pepper, leave it on low for a couple of minutes to infuse the oil with the garlic and cayenne flavor and avoiding overheating

Step 3
Add the artichokes, salt and pepper, and 1/4 cup of water or stock

Step 4
Cover with a lid and cook on low for 15 to 20min to get a very soft result.  If you prefer the artichokes to be on the crispier side, cook on medium without the lid for up to 15minutes depending on the size of the slices and how tender the artichokes are

Step 5
Serve with mint or parsley.

Artichokes stir-fry: Tips

You can cook this artichokes either in a slow cooker or a pressure cooker.
Slow cooker: add all the ingredients to the slow cooker and cook on low for about 2/3h.
Pressure cooker:  you can follow step 1 and two then add the remaining and cook for 5/8minutes.

You can freeze the cooked artichokes, they’ll keep in the freezer for several months, it’s best to vacuum packed them when freezing.