How To Oven Roast Carrots: oven roasted carrots are quick and easy, only 4 ingredients, deliciously tender and caramelized, great side dish.
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Wondering how to oven roast carrots? These easy oven roasted carrots are a great side dish with almost anything. Serve these with a holiday dinner, or just as part of an everyday weeknight healthy side dish at dinner. They cook in about 20-25 minutes, depending on how large you cut them, so they're quite quick to make, with just a few simple ingredients.
Only Four Ingredients
Simple roasted carrots are super easy to make. Just four simple ingredients at you can find easily at the grocery store:
- carrots
- extra virgin olive oil
- salt
- pepper
This delicious side dish is pretty foolproof, and I'm sure once you try them, they'll make it into your standard easy weeknight meals rotation.
Why Roasted?
There's lots of ways to cook delicious fresh carrots, but what I love best about this carrot recipe is that roasting the carrots at a high heat brings out the natural sweetness of the carrots and causes those sugars to caramelize, making them a lovely golden brown. To make sure they caramelize nicely, be sure not to overcrowd the pan, since they release a little liquid while they cook, and we don't want them to steam in their own juices. Always place them in a single layer on the large baking sheet. The other key to a nice caramelization is to use a high temperature, to add lots of nice colour to your caramelized carrots.
Other Variations on How To Oven Roast Carrots
Love sweet carrots? Feel free to add a tablespoon of honey before roasting for sweet honey roasted carrots. Or try adding pure maple syrup or brown sugar to sweeten them up.
You can also add your favourite fresh herbs like fresh parsley or fresh thyme to this dish, but personally, I love them with just a sprinkle of salt old salt and black pepper.
Lots of over vegetable are delicious when roasted with just a little oil and some salt and pepper, just like our carrots. Feel free to try a combination of roasted vegetables with your carrots. Just cut the veggies to about the same size and add other varieties to the sheet pan such as sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, onions, or brussels sprouts. It's such a good idea for bringing out the sweet flavor of regular carrots and many other vegetables.
How Long To Roast Carrots At 400 In The Oven?
How long it takes to cook oven-roasted carrots does depend on the size of the carrots, and your particular oven. We cut our carrots into sticks and the cooking time was 20-25 minutes. Be sure to flip the carrots half way through the cooking so that they don't bun on the bottom. If your carrots aren't tender and caramelized after 25 minutes, just add another 2-5 minutes and check them again. Also, don't make the mistake of removing them from the oven as soon as they are tender, make sure you give them long enough to brown. This is caramelized sugars browning, and it really makes a much taster roasted carrot if you give it long enough to brown. So if they're not quite browned yet, give them some more time, but do check them frequently so that they don't burn.
Leftovers
If you have any leftovers, which I never seem to, store them in the fridge in an airtight container and reheat in the microwave.
Recipe
How To Oven Roast Carrots
Ingredients
- 2 lbs carrots
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Peel your carrots, and cut into carrot sticks. Try and make your carrots around the same size so that they'll cook evenly.
- Place the carrots sticks on a baking sheet, and add the olive oil. Toss or stir to evenly cover the carrot sticks with oil, and make sure they're in an even layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Cook at 400 degrees, for around 20-25 minutes until the carrots are tender and soft, and slightly caramelized on the outside. Turn the carrots with a spatula half way through cooking. Enjoy
Nutrition
We enjoyed our oven roast carrots as part of our recent Frozen themed dinner and movie night -read all about here. They're the perfect side dish for almost any main dishes, but we loved them with our Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. They make a great easy addition to any dinner party menu. These are the best roasted carrots and I'm sure you'll enjoy them, if your a fan of carrots. Roasting them gives them the best flavor, and brings out all their natural sugars. This simple recipe is my favorite way to cook carrots.
With a recipe for how to oven roast carrots, life really is a party!
More Recipe Inspiration
You might also like our Mac and Cheese with Panko Breadcrumb Topping recipe here.
Also check out our Homemade Slow Cooker Baked Beans recipe here.
You might also enjoy Crispy Panko Onion Rings recipe here.
This recipe was part of our Frozen themed Disney Princess Dinner and Movie Night -check out all the details about the whole party here.
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