How To Give Your Artichokes The Ultimate Flavor Boost

While most vegetables are pretty straightforward to peel, chop, and cook, fresh artichokes can be a little ... prickly. The biggest barrier is probably the prep work, which involves snipping away the tips of the leaves, which can be quite sharp and pointy. Then there's of course all the cooking, whether you choose to steam, boil, grill them. So it can be pretty disappointing to end up with bland-tasting artichokes after putting in all the work. We think everybody should love artichokes just as much as we do, so we asked Kieron Hales, the chef of Zingerman's Cornman Farms, to give us a few pointers on how to give artichokes an ultimate flavor boost.

The most important piece of the artichoke puzzle, according to Hales, is to make sure your fresh artichokes are salted properly. They can taste very bland without seasoning, which is why they're often sold marinated, so to get the salt absorbed into a fresh artichoke, use a couple of different salting methods. "Before cooking, I always season with salt, and steaming with salt will penetrate and season the artichokes more fully," Hales said.

The flavor of artichokes is very mild and a bit of a blank slate, which is perfect for bright, bold flavors. Don't wait, however, to start adding ingredients. The best time to add extra flavors to cooked artichokes is as soon as they're hot and ready. Once they're just cool enough to touch, you can start dipping pieces of your 'chokes in melted butter, or even better some lemon butter and fresh garlic. "Post-cooking in our house we love to add browned butter, lemon and roasted garlic," Hales said. "As for an unexpected dip, I love to add artichokes to my raita/tzatziki. I love a fresh homemade yogurt with the wonderful flavors of mint, cucumber and the addition of artichokes." 

Just make sure you don't over or undercook them, which is one of the biggest mistakes people make with artichokes. An undercooked artichoke will have a tough texture and be impossible to pull apart, while an overcooked one will get soggy and fall apart to the touch, and no amount of dips or spices will be able to save them.

Since it does take a fair amount of prep and cooking time to make a batch of fresh artichokes, it (hopefully) goes without saying that none of them will get wasted. If you can't eat all your artichokes in one sitting, one of the best ways to store them will also give them tons of flavor: Store the leftovers in flavored oil. Hales says that marinated artichokes are very versatile. "If you are not planning on eating them right away after cooking, I love keeping artichokes in oil, with spices like star anise, clove, roasted garlic, black pepper and cardamom. They can last weeks like this at home," he said.

When you're ready to eat your marinated artichokes, Hales said to let them come up to room temperature. If you want them hot, warm the artichokes in a 450-degree oven for about eight minutes, and they'll be ready to toss with pasta, top a salad, or any of the other nine ways we can think of to eat artichoke hearts. The best part about marinated artichoke hearts? No prickly leaves to contend with whatsoever, and they're already cooked and ready to eat anytime.