Easy Vegan Roasted Maple Glazed Carrots Recipe (oil-free) (2024)

FAQs

How to make Gordon Ramsay carrots? ›

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.

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.

Next, put the garlic cloves and salt in the mortar, crush to a purée, then whisk in the oil. Now toss this mixture around with the carrots and spices, then spread it out on the baking tray. Pop it into the oven on a high shelf and roast until the carrots are tender when tested with a skewer – 30-40 minutes.

Glazed carrots coated in a mixture of brown sugar and butter are a versatile side dish you can serve alongside a weeknight meatloaf, a Sunday ham, or your Thanksgiving turkey. These caramelized carrots are a definite kid-pleaser but they're elegant enough to impress the adults as well!

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.

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

Flavor Enhancements

Use spearmint, marjoram, a small bay leaf, thyme, grated ginger root, chopped chives, dill or parsley.

Roasting Tips

Parboiling skin-on carrots and parsnips lets you soften them without them losing too much moisture. Follow up by browning in a 375°F (190°C) oven for about 40 minutes.

If you crowd and overlap the veggies, they will steam and get mushy, not what we want! Roast vegetables at a high heat, 425 degrees F and make sure you preheat the oven so it is HOT when the veggies go in! Flip! For even browning and caramelization, flip vegetables halfway through cook time.

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.

What cooking method is best for carrots? ›

Roasting draws out the natural sweetness and you get a nice caramelized flavor. They're so much better than boiled carrots! Roasting is also easy; it's hard to overcook a roasted vegetable: if it gets too done, it's clearly burned. However, it's so easy to overcook boiled vegetables, especially carrots.

The reason this hack works is because carrots are a very dense root vegetable that doesn't have a ton of moisture. Since it has a lack of moisture, roasting it will just burn the item before the inside can cook. This is the same for things like broccoli – the top part burns before the stem can cook.

Yes. Like many other fruits and vegetables, dogs get health benefits from carrots. In fact, every part of this vegetable, from the carrot itself to the leafy green tops, is safe for dogs to eat. They're a good, natural treat, and most dogs seem to like the flavor, too.

Yes, the white blush that forms on some baby carrots—call it carrot dandruff if you like—is safe to eat. The scuzz of which we speak is the result of the carrots' surface drying out. Regular, mature carrots have a natural protective coating (as do most fruits and vegetables) that helps them retain moisture.

Go for uniformity when selecting carrots by eye — it's the best way to ensure you're getting as close to a pound as possible without relying on a scale. From there, you can scale up or down as need; 10 carrots will get you to two pounds, and two to three carrots equates to half a pound.

The carrot trick, which is as simple as adding pieces of raw, trimmed carrot to your frying oil, could prevent whatever you're frying and the oil itself from burning. When your frying oil doesn't burn away quickly, you won't have to keep adding more to the pan.

To Rough-Cut or Dice

Large carrots should be split in half or quartered lengthwise first, then crosscut into large chunks. For smaller dice, cut the carrot lengthwise into roughly 1/4-inch sticks, then crosscut those sticks into 1/4-inch dice.