Home grown Asparagus: pan fried

Home grown Asparagus to pan fried, the first vegetable to harvest in early spring. There’s nothing more wonderful than the reward out of your garden after a long cold winters nap.

Asparagus is very easy to grow and it comes back year after year with very little care.

When to plant, asparagus is planted in early spring and has male and female plants. You will know the female plants because they will produce small berries when left to grow for another season.

It usually takes two-three growing seasons before you may be able to harvest your first asparagus spears.

If you want to learn more on how to grow your own asparagus, just click on the link I’ve provided.

It’s well worth the wait to grow your own!

There are many ways to cook your asparagus. From baking, broiling, Instant pot, steaming to grilling and probably more!

One of my favorites is pan-fried with garlic, pink salt and butter. So easy and simple, plus it only takes a few minutes to cook. Depending on how crisp you like your asparagus.

The first thing you want to do is rinse your asparagus really well to remove any sand, dirt or bugs.

Next you’ll want to gently bend each asparagus spear and let it naturally break where it wants to.

This way you will have removed any of the woody part that can be difficult to eat.

When you’ve gone through each spear just place them in a colander to let them dry a bit.

Choose the size of pan that will accommodate the size and amount of your asparagus.

You’ll also need a lid for your pan if you want your asparagus to be more tender.

Time to heat up your pan, then add your oil of choice. Just enough oil to coat your pan and keep things from sticking.

Tip: My favorite oil for frying is Expeller-Pressed Coconut Oil. Expeller coconut oil means the taste of the coconut has been removed. So you get a clean tasteless oil that doesn’t interfere with the flavor of your food.

The expeller coconut oil has a smoking point of 350 degrees before it begins to break down or burn.

Once you’ve added your asparagus to your heated oiled pan, fry it on medium heat.

I like to let each spear get a little browned on one side before flipping the spears over.

You’ll notice as the asparagus gets cooked, it will turn a darker green. This is a good time to do a spear taste test to see how crunchy you want them.

Once most of the spears have been browned I add 2 Tablespoons of garlic.

A little Tip: I will sometimes buy pre-minced garlic in the jars to keep on hand in case I run out of the fresh garlic. I divide the pre-minced garlic up into 2 Tablespoon amounts, and put it in a silicone ice-cube tray. Freeze it, then pop the frozen cubed garlic out of the ice-cube tray. Store them in an air tight freezer container. This way I have garlic ready when ever I need it and it stores for a long time in the freezer.

I use silicone ice-cube trays for freezing garlic and onion. Because the frozen cubes are easier to pop out and clean up than the hard plastic types. I only use those trays for freezing onion or garlic then.  Then I don’t need to worry about transferring flavor’s.

When adding my frozen garlic I like to place a lid on the pan to help unfreeze the garlic quicker.

Now is the time to add a little pink salt to taste and 2 Tablespoons of Kerry Gold Butter, or butter of your choice.  Flip your asparagus spears so they get coated in the salt, melted butter and garlic.

Then just finish up cooking your spears to the doneness you desire. I prefer mine crunchy so I’ll take them out right away.

After you’ve taken out your fried asparagus and your pan is still hot. Add 2 Tablespoons of butter to the pan and brown it a little along with what garlic was left in the pan.

This will give you a wonderful caramelized flavor that you can pour over the top of your asparagus. Or maybe even over the top of your items your having with your asparagus.

Happy Eats!