How To Prepare & Cook Pak Choi

What is it?

Pak Choi (also known as ‘bok choy’) is a member of the cabbage family. Like many leafy greens, it’s full of goodness, boasting a healthy amount of fibre, minerals, vitamins and antioxidants too.

Its structure is similar to a squat celery and has dark, glossy green leaves with a paler, white stalk. The flavour is somewhere between cabbage and spinach, and the texture is wonderfully crunchy. It’s perfect for adding some crunchiness to curries and broth dishes alike.

How To Prepare Pak Choi

One of the things we love about pak choi is that it’s available all year round – it’s not specifically seasonal. Below is how you can go about preparing pak choi for your dish.

1. Firstly, you’ll want to choose the best products, so make sure you opt for pak choi that has firm-looking and glossy leaves with an unblemished stalk. The smaller cabbages tend to be the most tender, so pick those if you’re after that in your dish.
2. Next, it’s important to wash pak choi like you would any other cabbage.
3. Now, you can either tear the entire stalk and leaf off and cook as is – many Japanese-style noodle broths keep them whole like this, however, we recommend choosing a small or young pak choi for this. Alternatively, you can chop horizontally into wide strips down the vegetable.

Storing Pak Choi

Pak choi is best kept in the refrigerator. To keep it at its freshest, try storing it in a plastic bag or wrapped in a paper towel. It can be kept in the fridge for up to a week.

Pak choi leaves can be delicate and easily bruised, so it’s best to try and handle it carefully. It’s important to handle pak choi with care. If you see any damage to the leaves or that they have started to yellow, try to use it in a delicious dish as soon as possible so none goes to waste!

If you’ve cut your pak choi for a recipe and have some left over, try wrapping the surplus in plastic wrap or foil and popping it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

How To Cook Pak Choi

We’ve outlined some of our favourite methods of cooking pak choi below, all of which retain the lovely fresh flavour of the vegetable:

Steamed

Sliced pak choi will take as little time as 2 mins to steam, and whole it can take up to 8 mins. So pop it on to steam when you’re nearing the end of your cooking time.

Stir-fried

We love a good stir fry! As you’d expect, this a super quick method that retains a nice crunch, only taking 2 mins.

Blanched

Pak choi is so quick to cook it only needs a quick blanch in boiling water for 2 mins to get the effect you want for that refreshing crunch.

Pak Choi Recipe Ideas