Water Cooking, Not Oil

Sweating, sauteing, boiling, and parboiling in water instead of fat, and the one habit that keeps it from scorching.

Oil's real job in most recipes is heat transfer: it coats the pan so the food underneath cooks evenly instead of sticking dry metal to dry vegetable. Water does the same job. A few tablespoons in a hot pan will steam and soften an onion just as surely as oil will, and because water boils away at a fixed, low temperature, the vegetables underneath poach gently instead of frying. The trade is time, not flavor: water cooking takes a minute or two longer than oil, and that time is what turns raw aromatics translucent and sweet.

The one real risk is scorching. Water evaporates; oil does not. A pan sweating onions in water will run dry after a few minutes, and once it does, the sugars on the pan's bottom go from browned to burnt in under thirty seconds. The fix is not more water up front, which just steams the vegetables instead of building any color. Add water a tablespoon at a time, only when the pan looks dry or starts to catch, scraping up anything stuck to the bottom as you go. That scraped-up fond is flavor, not a mess, and folding it back into the vegetables is most of what makes a water-cooked base taste built rather than boiled.

Two related moves use plain water instead of a splash:

Boiling cooks a whole ingredient fully submerged, the default for dried beans, lentils, and grains. Nothing to watch here beyond keeping the water topped up.
Parboiling partially cooks something in boiling water before it finishes another way, typically roasting or a quick saute. It shortens the second cook and evens out dense vegetables (a whole potato, a wedge of squash) that would otherwise burn on the outside before the inside is done.

Between the three, a kitchen with no oil in it can still soften, brown, boil, and parcook everything a recipe here asks for.

Water Cooking, Not Oil

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