Steam cooking is an easy and fast way to cook a wide variety of foods, such as vegetables, grains and proteins, while preserving the food’s natural flavors. Steam your foods to retain more nutrition and reduce caloric intake you get with other cooking methods.
6 When steam cooking grains, such as rice and spaghetti, don't put the dry grains directly into the steaming insert. Slightly parboil rice or spaghetti in a separate pot of water first before steaming. If you do have to take the lid off the pot during cooking, be sure to move quickly and replace the lid as soon as possible. Remove excess fat before steaming proteins.
Place foods in a single layer in the steaming insert. This allows all of the pieces of food to have equal exposure to the steam during cooking.
Make sure you have a tight fitting lid for your steam pot. The lid helps keep the steam inside the pot for faster cooking. If the lid does not fit properly, or if you take the lid off the steam pot during cooking, steam will escape and the cooking time will increase.