Carrots, like bananas, make a perfect snack. They’re easy, they travel well, and they’re healthy. They make such a great snack, in fact, that I’ve eaten one almost every weekday for several years. Oh my gosh, I am so sick of the daily carrot.
And I work at home three days per week. So why am I eating raw carrots day in and day out, when I could have sweet, crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside roasted carrots with just five minutes of effort?
I know they lose nutrients (and fiber? I’m not sure) when you cook them, but for me, it’s a compromise that I have to make. If I tried to force myself to eat them raw when that doesn’t sound at all appealing, it’s a pretty safe bet that I’d end up eating cookie dough instead.
Although I tend to eat carrots as a snack, this would make a great side dish for all kinds of meals. Roasting brings out the best in carrots.
Roasted Carrots (from Ina Garten)
Bridget note: There’s quite a bit of flexibility in this recipe. I use regular table salt and just enough oil to coat the carrots. I mix those ingredients right in the pan instead of dirtying another bowl. I tend to roast the carrots at a higher temperature, simply because I forget the right temperature and am too lazy to check the recipe. I always skip the fresh herbs at the end.
12 carrots, peeled
3 tablespoons good olive oil
1¼ teaspoons kosher salt
½ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons minced fresh dill or parsley
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
If the carrots are thick, cut them in half lengthwise; if not, leave whole. Slice the carrots diagonally in 1½-inch-thick slices. (The carrots will shrink while cooking so make the slices big.) Toss them in a bowl with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Transfer to a sheet pan in 1 layer and roast in the oven for 20 minutes, until browned and tender.
Toss the carrots with minced dill or parsley, season to taste, and serve.
I’ve been making these for a while – it’s now my favorite way to cook carrots. It concentrates the sugars and really brings out the flavor. But you also managed to make them photogenic!
I love roasted carrots but hubby not so much. I wish I had more opportunities to make them-I can’t see how roasted carrots can be seen as a vegetable anyway, they are so sweet and buttery!
These look delicious- I wonder if you could do this with a variety of root vegetables like turnips? What a lovely Fall side dish!
Hooray for beta carotine 🙂
I wonder if these would freeze well? We have a bunch of carrots in our garden that need to be harvested soon and I ‘ve been trying to figure out what to do with them. There’s too many to eat at once and I don’t want them to go bad. I was contemplating steaming them and mashing them up for baby food, but I think there might be too many for just that. This might be a good idea too.
Bridget, thank you for posting this. What a simple and delicious recipe! I really don’t like raw carrots, but I try to eat them anyway. 🙂 I roasted them after reading this post earlier today, and they were perfect!