Easy Roasted Carrots Recipe = Side Dish Perfection! • The Simple Parent (2024)

FAQs

What should I season carrots with? ›

Seasoning carrots is a great way to help bring out their flavor. For a simple and versatile seasoning, stick with salt, pepper, and garlic. For an herbier taste, add rosemary, parsley, cumin, or coriander. Or, to bring out their fresh, woody flavor, add some anise.

Undercook them, and the texture is tough and dense. Overcook them, and they're dry and wrinkled. The secret is to soften the carrots slightly by boiling them briefly before roasting. The texture will be firm-tender with just the right amount of caramelization on the outside.

Cooking instructions

Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan, then add the carrots and parsnips and toss to coat in the oil. Add the thyme, cinnamon, star anise and some seasoning. Cook over a medium heat for 15-20 minutes, turning the vegetables frequently, until golden brown and almost cooked through.

Sautéing is one of the healthiest ways to cook carrots.

#1 Roasted

This is our CSA members' favorite way to enjoy our farm's fresh carrots. Slice or keep them whole if baby sized and toss with salt and pepper as your most basic preparation, or optionally add garlic, dill or honey to change it up. Roast on a baking sheet at 400 degrees until tender. So, so, so sweet!

As with many vegetables, roasting carrots brings out their sweet inner nature. Peel the carrots or don't peel the carrots—it's up to you. Peeling takes a bit more time, obviously, but also leads to a more consistent final texture to the dish.

When to Skip Peeling Carrots. “Juicing and roasting carrots are good times to avoid peeling,” says Hilowitz. “If you are making a rustic dish, then leaving the peel on could potentially enhance the look and experience of the dish.

If your carrots are hard, it's probably because you haven't roasted them long enough or at a high enough temperature. I roast mine at 400°F for 35 to 38 minutes until tender. It's also really important to cut them into the same size so they cook evenly.

Mixing carrots and oranges can be very dangerous. This mix has been known to cause heartburn and kidney damage.

How to spice up raw carrots? ›

Spice 'em up! Carrots pair well with fresh or dried herbs like thyme, rosemary & parsley. Bring out extra flavor in carrots by adding spices like ginger, paprika, cinnamon or curry powder.

Cooking carrots allows beta carotene, an antioxidant compound that gets converted to vitamin A in the intestine, to absorb more easily in the body, explains Beckerman. 2 This helps your body soak up even more health benefits, like boosting your immunity and promoting eye health.

It's best to cook carrots for the shortest time possible to preserve their nutritional value. Boiling, in particular, may lower some of the antioxidant activity in carrots and nutrients like vitamin C. But it makes it easier for the body to absorb the carotene in them.

No matter which way you cook them, carrots are a healthy choice. Steaming is a slightly better pick since the carrots don't lose as many of their nutrients to the water. (Steaming is also more environmentally friendly since it uses less water.)

While they're a year-round supermarket staple, carrots actually have a season, or two seasons to be precise. There's a late spring crop as well as a fall crop and some of the fall harvest goes into cold storage for winter, which means you can enjoy carrots now and for months to come.

Salt is the bare minimum, and the right amount will make a huge difference. Add salt gradually and taste as you go, they should taste more flavourful but not outright salty. Try herbs and spices like paprika, cumin, oregano, chilli powder, curry powder, basil and more.

Consider using thyme paired with olive oil to improve the flavor of your canned carrots. Thyme is a potent herb with a lemony, earthy flavor. It's often found paired with meats, stews, and Thanksgiving foods. Thyme helps to balance the sweet taste of carrots and can improve your side dish significantly.