One of my favorite recipes is crazy simple. Make roasted carrots using three ingredients: carrots, oil, and lemon juice.
Roasted carrots are my idea of candy. Not that I reserve this ritual for carrots alone. Roasting all kinds of fruits and vegetables is a complex chemical transformation that results in an amazing texture and flavor. The lower and slower you roast vegetables, the more tender they’ll be throughout. For this recipe, I go a bit faster but not too fast.
I coat the carrots with the oil lemon juice mixture and then roast them from 40 to 50 minutes. Sometimes I add some aromatic spices and sweetness, like cinnamon or cardamom, but most of the time I keep it simple.
As for the roasting surface, I use either a non-stick mat or parchment paper. Because the Silpat and other non-stick mats tend to absorb odors of the food that has cooked on them I reserve one Siplat for all my savory roasting and the other for sweets.
You can eat these simply by spearing each carrot with a fork and muching down to the stem, or add a dressing and a bed of greens and enjoy it as a warm salad. For the dressing, I usually add the ranch dressing from my first cookbook. Feel free to use your favorite dressing, or whip up a small batch of lemony garlic yogurt dressing, tahini dressing, or maybe a creamy vinaigrette. Or just insert fork into carrot and eat.
To make a creamy vinaigrette, just add a tablespoon of dairy-free milk or yogurt to your favorite vinaigrette, or try this one.
Roasted Carrots
Ingredients
- 2 pounds carrots
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice about 1/2 lemon
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C or gas mark 6).
- Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper or non-stick mat.
- Place the carrots on the bakign sheet.
- Mix the oil and lemon juice together in a small bowl and brush it across the carrots, coating them.
- Bake for 40 t0 50 minutes, depending on the thickness of the carrots. Test the carrots by inserting a fork in the thickest part of one of the carrots.
When you say roast what is the temp of the oven you recommend?
This is a great recipe, thank you for sharing! I’m always looking for new ways to cook my veggies, and my boyfriend and I LOVED these! Please check out my blogpost about it 🙂
http://foodie-on-foot.blogspot.com/2013/03/roasted-carrots.html
Thanks Jamie!
I love carrots and this is a great recipe, will be trying tomorrow!
This recipe looks fantastic. I just discovered rosemary roasted yams a few days ago and those were delicious. Carrots will definitely have to be the next try.
Great website. The more I look into healthier cooking options, the more people I find who, like you, care about their health and the health of their family. Your website is one I will be coming back to!
Thanks! Veggies are the best 🙂
I love the simplicity of your recipes….Thank you for sharing them. Congratulations for the book! I am sure it will become a popular cooking book!
I made these the other night and they were sooooo goood! We ate them for lunch the next day too. I also just pre-ordered your cookbook and I seriously can’t wait. It will be so nice to have the recipes in a book rather than the zillion pages I print out of your recipes all the time.
I go to your site every day for great food. We have such a variety of allergies in our home, and I KNOW that I can make every one of your recipes and they will be good!
Thanks Amy! This is one of my weekly eats so I’m glad you enjoyed it as much as I do 🙂 Just fyi, my book is mostly new recipes, so I’m afraid you better hold on to those printed pages.