The vegetables namely mustard leaves, spinach, bathua, radish leaves, amaranthus, carrots and pumpkin were analyzed for their β-carotene content in the raw and in the cooked form using traditional cooking methods. Spinach, Amaranthus, mustard leaves, fenugreek leaves, carrots and pumpkin had β-carotene content as 5.80, 4.28, 5.85, 2.75, 5.21 and 0.89 mg/100g, respectively on fresh weight basis whereas in the pressure cooked form, the β-carotene content of the above said vegetables was 4.84, 3.62, 5.42, 2.23, 4.14 and 0.68 mg/100g, respectively. Cooking resulted in 7.2-24.3 % losses

being minimum in mustard and maximum in pumpkin. The bathua leaves, fenugreek leaves, radish leaves and maize flour had β-carotene as 2.49, 2.75, 3.98 and 0.09 mg/100g, respectively on fresh weight basis. The β-carotene content of commonly consumed vegetables decreased significantly (p<0.01) on pressure cooking. The vegetables cooked in the form of traditional Punjabi recipes i.e. mustard saag had β-carotene 32 mg/100 g, spinach + paneer vegetable had 47.3 mg/100 g, whereas potato fenugreek and carrot, potato+ peas had β-carotene as 0.39 and 37.6 mg/100g, respectively. The increase in the β-carotene content of cooked vegetables using traditional methods might be due to the addition of other ingredients like bathua leaves, maize flour, tomatoes, paneer, potatoes and peas etc. Thus, these traditional recipes could be a potential the contributor to daily requirement of β-carotene and should be made use of.