Difference between sautéing and sweating vegetables

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Following on from a thread about why you sweat vegetables, it came to my attention that people don't seem to know what the difference is, or in fact what either sautéing or sweating are. So I have found an article that explains the two processes from a culinary point of view.

A sweat is similar to a sauté in that the goal is to cook small, uniform pieces of food in an open pan in a small amount of fat. The difference between the two techniques lies in the temperature

Good so far, they are very similar techniques but the difference is temperature related.

A sauté should be done over medium-high to high heat, and the goal is to cook quickly while browning the food. While a sauté can produce a finished meal, a sweat is almost always a preliminary step in a longer cooking method.

So a sauté is over a hotter temperature, browning the vegetables and can be the final step in the meal Preperation.

...in a sweat, you don’t want the food to brown...

Sweating does not brown the vegetables but,

In cooking, we take the time to sweat aromatics—onions, carrots, celery, garlic, shallots, etc—before adding other ingredients in order to start building flavors...

Sweating helps to draw out moisture from the aromatics... ... once the aromatics are translucent, which is easiest to see in the onions, you can add more ingredients and continue with the recipe knowing that you’ve given the aromatics a head start in cooking and drawing out flavors

So sweating helps to soften the vegetables and draws flavour from them.


The key differences between sweating and sautéing are

• sautéing browns, sweating does not
• sweating uses salt and helps to draw moisture and hence flavour off from the vegetables. The higher temperature of sautéing will force this extra moisture to evaporate off.

The whole article is here. www.reluctantgourmet.com/how-to-sweat-vegetables/

 

[Morning Glory]

The clue is in the word sautee - from the French sauter which means 'to jump'. This is because when sauteing, the food is tossed in the pan to prevent burning. Of course, you don't have to toss the ingredients - you can just constantly move them around using a utensil. Sweating is also as it sounds.... heat slowly until moisture (sweat) appears!

 

[Berties]

Sweating is cooking slowly without colour and sauté is cooking quickly in minimum of oil

 

[L_B]

Thanks for three explanation. I didn't know what the difference was so now I do. Seems I learn something new every day.

 

[Morning Glory]

And then there's caramelising...

 

[OhioTom76]

Sweating vegetables also affects the texture of the recipes they are used in. Admittedly, for many years I used to skip sweating aromatics in many recipes, and would simply try to finely dice or grate them instead - assuming they would just soften up on their own in the rest of the cooking process. But in hindsight, and after trying sweating them again, it really does make a difference in not just the flavor but also the texture. In particular I've tried sweating and not sweating carrots, onions and celery in recipes such as a pasta sauce, or in the case of onions and garlic specifically, when making home made meatballs.

In sauces, when I don't sweat them first, I can still taste harder bits of these veggies no matter how long I cook the sauce. They never really seem to "melt" into it. Wit meatballs, I can still feel the bits and pieces of onions and garlic in my mouth - not to mention the meatballs themselves seem a bit more brittle and don't bind together as well.

Caramelizing onions is a tough one for me though in particular, because they take so long to do so - usually at least 30 minutes or so over a moderate heat, constantly stirring. My big issue is, by the time I'm done making them, I have no appetite for them at all because I'm sick of the smell, lol. Plus it smells up your kitchen for quite some while.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

In sauces, when I don't sweat them first, I can still taste harder bits of these veggies no matter how long I cook the sauce. They never really seem to "melt" into it. Wit meatballs, I can still feel the bits and pieces of onions and garlic in my mouth - not to mention the meatballs themselves seem a bit more brittle and don't bind together as well.

My understanding is that onions in particular do not cook any further (or soften) once tomatoes are added because of the tomatoes' acidic nature. This acid is why these veg don't soften. But I could be wrong.

 

[Corzhens]

Thanks for this thread. Now I have a clearer understanding of what sweating vegetable means. This is the first time I've heard of such word related to cooking and at first I thought it was some kind of dehydrating the vegetables. So sweating is similar to blanching, like soft cooking only. With sautee, the vegetable is cooked brown especially with cabbage or broccoli. By the way, my idea of sweating vegetables is for use in other dishes like a meat dish with garnishings of sweated vegetables.

 

[winterybella]

Thanks for three explanation. I didn't know what the difference was so now I do. Seems I learn something new every day.

My sentiments exactly.