How To Roast Vegetables Simply
by Melinda Briana Epler
One Green Generation
When I bring my lunch to work, or I tell people what we had for dinner last night, people are often impressed with my roasted vegetables. "How do you do that?" I'm often asked. Yes, I remember before my husband went to cooking school, I had no idea how to roast veggies, and it sounded really difficult!
Well I'm here to tell any of you who don't know how, that it is one of the easiest things to cook when you have a busy schedule like mine. Basically, you do a very small bit of prepping, and then you set it and forget it.
How To Roast Vegetables Simply
The following is Matt's awesome recipe - enjoy!
Ingredients.
- Seasonal Vegetables
- Cooking Oil (we prefer olive oil)
- Salt
- Pepper
Steps.
- Preheat the oven to 400. Matt says, “Set it and forget it, don’t listen to recipes that give different temperatures for everything.”
- Chop the vegetables into large pieces (photos above).
- Put the vegetables in a large bowl and coat in oil (we prefer olive oil). For the amount of veggies above, we used 2-3 tablespoons. Don’t be afraid of over-oiling - the extra will just pool at the bottom of the bowl.
- Toss!
- Salt heavily. I throw in a small handful of salt.
- Toss!
- Pepper the vegetables well, but don’t over do it.
- Toss!
- Place the vegetables on baking sheet, without over-packing them. The vegetables should lightly touch, but not pile up on top of each other. If you’re roasting a lot of vegetables, put different vegetables on different baking sheets. If you’re roasting vegetables of very different cooking times (eg, potatoes and broccoli) you can put them on different baking sheets and stagger the timing - or just throw it all together like we often do.
- Give the veggies a good stir with a metal or wooden spatula about 15-20 minutes in.
Total roasting time is between 30 minutes and 1 hour, depending on what you're cooking. Taste to see if it's done - you may like it crispier or you may like it just barely soft. (Or if you like them a bit browned, you can switch to broil at the end for some quick extra color.)
That's it! Serve as a snack, as a side dish, or as a main dish over couscous, rice, bulgar wheat, farrow wheat, or some other tasty whole grain.
Variations are plentiful. We often add fresh herbs. For example, rosemary and potatoes go well together, thyme and carrots go well together, sage and cauliflower go well together. You can also try different oils - canola oil has a lighter flavor. A little lemon juice or orange zest gives it a bit of zing. Matt likes to sneak in a few cayenne pepper flakes for a splash of heat.
Veggies That Are Good For Roasting
Our favorites are potatoes, corn, summer squash, winter squash, garlic, peppers (hot and sweet), eggplant, onions, scallions (put them in toward the end), carrots, beets, bulb fennel, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and broccoli.
Others we've successfully roasted include tomatoes, string beans (put them in toward the end), lemons, greens (right at the end, put them in for a minute or two), garlic scapes.... We haven't roasted anything we didn't like, so have fun and experiment!
What Do You Like To Roast?
14 comments:
My favorite right now is a combination of butternut squash and onion. At 450 degrees it took about 30 minutes. Yum!
Thanks Melinda, that hint about the tossing looks like just what I needed to know. Cheers, Rose
My favorites are the fall root veggies! Carrots, turnips, potatoes... Yummy!
I just discovered roasted kale, which turns into kale chips when cooked alone and given a bit of attention...I cook 5 minutes then turn over then for 7 minutes...take out and salt...I haven't tried salting them first as I'm afraid they won't be crispy...seriously, it's addictive...olive oil...kale...mmmm...
We do a combination of rutabags, turnip, parsnip, sweet potato, white or red potatoes, and a squash if I pick one up at the market. I toss them in olive oil and sprinkle them with thyme, basil, garlic, salt pepper and bake for however long it takes to get them done. I could eat these every day!
Yum, I love roast veggies, and often bake a tray full on Sunday afternoon to mix into salad for work lunches through the week (sometimes with firm cubed tofu added). I like to add moroccan spices to purple onion, fennel, zucchini, cauliflower and capsicum (peppers), but I've never tried broccoli. Thanks for the tip!
Hmm, lemon sounds interesting! Is that just for additional flavour or do you actually munch on that too?
Love, love, love food like this and anything which involves a small amount of prep and then just stuffing it in the oven!
Great, healthy food lazy style!
Plus roasted veg is one of the nicest foods - my favourite is sweet potato
Jen
It's the simple things in life, isn't it :) I can't say I've ever done a lot of roasting, I will have to try next time I have the fresh produce laying around.
deborah, roasted lemons are very tasty both as a garnish and to just eat - we used to have a meyer lemon tree, and they were magnificent roasted!
rose, great to hear that it helped!
thanks for sharing all your favorites - next on my list to roast now are kale and rutabagas!
we like to roast a variety of veg (cauliflower is amazingly good - the kids love it roasted!). i have discovered cold leftover roast veg are great for dinner the next night in a frittata - just add egg and cook. i always make double - saves electricity and makes dinner easy the second night
Roasting really is a great way to eat any kind of veg. I just make roasted cauliflower yesterday and it was fantastic.
Thanks! That is so helpful. Finally, something to do besides steaming. ~Liz
Your plated presentation of veggies is beautiful! We are enjoying roasted root veggies at the moment, certainly a favorite way to eat them!
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