Thanksgiving dinner features a giant bird that, when roasted nicely, brings a palette ranging from beige to golden brown to the table. Without a little forethought, you could easily end up with a bland-looking spread, even if it's delicious. Thankfully, the meal is equally about the bevy of sides you can offer as well. Do your color palette a favor and work some of these carrots into the mix!
While beautiful orange carrots roasted and glazed are lovely, you can also look to other colorful carrots as well. My table has been graced by white, yellow, orange, red, orange-purple, and even deep purple carrots. The deep purple black nebula carrots offered by our CSA farm this year made for a really lovely offset to the bright orange ones we traditionally are offered. A word of caution though - some brightly colored carrots bleed not unlike beets so be careful cleaning and cutting them and consider roasting them on different parts of the pan and reuniting them on your serving platter!
Since I was already embracing the sweetness with carrots and maple syrup, I opted to use melted coconut oil to give me a dish that feels a bit like dessert! If you want to prep this dish by placing the cut carrots into little bags with some of the glaze in each, you can do that up to 2 days in advance. You can store them in the refrigerator and let them come to room temperature before roasting them on the big day! Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Maple-Glazed Carrots
- 5 large carrots scrubbed & sliced into 2" pieces of similar thickness *
- 2 tablespoons cooking fat (olive oil, melted coconut oil, bacon fat or butter will work)
- 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- Salt & pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- ½ teaspoon granulated garlic
Preheat the oven to 425°F and move the rack to the middle position.
Cut the carrots into pieces that are roughly the same size.
Place the remaining ingredients (cooking fat of your choice - I used melted coconut oil - through granulated garlic) in a large resealable bag or mixing bowl. Add the cut carrots and toss well to coat. If you are roasting different hues of carrots, you may wish to do this in batches, beginning with the lightest colored carrots and ending with the darkest colors. After each batch has been coated, place them on a baking sheet, adding more carrots as each batch is coated.
Roast the carrots for 15-20 minutes, or until they veggies are tender-crisp (this will vary depending how big the pieces are).
Serve hot.
* I used a combination of traditional orange carrots and deep purple black nebula carrots. I sliced the black nebula carrots into thick half coins and the orange carrots into longer pieces. In both cases, the carrots were just scrubbed clean and cut. Leaving the peels on helps them roast better with proper glaze adhesion.
- Yields: 4-6 servings
- Preparation Time: 30 minutes