Of all the carrot recipes on Inspired Taste, these garlic butter carrots are my absolute favorite! We roast them until golden brown and tender, then toss them with the most delicious garlic parsley butter before serving.
These herby carrots are impressive. I’ve made them for the holidays and special occasions so many times!
They are also easy enough to make on a weeknight. If you’re tired of bland carrot recipes, this one is for you!
How to Cook Carrots – My Favorite Way!
Of all the ways to cook carrots, my favorite is oven roasting. Carrots don’t take long to cook in the oven — 25 to 30 minutes. And the oven does a magical job of bringing out the carrot’s natural sweetness.
For this carrots recipe, we roast our carrots tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper. I use a hot oven (425°F) and leave them in the oven until the edges start to wrinkle and lightly brown.
When our carrots come out of the oven, I toss them with the most delicious garlic parsley butter. It’s incredible.
Making the Garlic Butter
I love tossing carrots in this flavored butter. It’s also perfect tossed with other cooked or roasted veggies and spooned over salmon or chicken.
We’ll melt butter in a small pan over low heat to make it. Then add a smashed garlic clove and chopped fresh parsley.
Allow the butter to bubble gently around the garlic and parsley for a minute, then set the infused butter aside. I remove the garlic clove before tossing it with the carrots.
These carrots are super easy to make ahead! Roast them 3 to 4 days in advance and store them in an airtight container in the fridge.
For longer storage, freeze them for up to 3 months. To reheat, pop them in a 350°F oven for about 10 minutes, or use the microwave for a super-quick fix.
The garlic parsley butter tastes best fresh the day you make it, but you can make it a few days ahead. Just store it in the fridge after it cools. The parsley might lose some bright green color, but it will still taste delicious.
What to Serve with These Carrots
These simple carrots with garlic butter always impress. We love to serve them next to Pan-Roasted Chicken, my mother’s Baked Salmon with Lemon and Dill, and our Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Apples. They are also perfect for topping grain or rice bowls.
Our carrots recipe calls for garlic and parsley butter, but feel free to get creative! This recipe is more of a guide than a rulebook. Love basil? Toss it in! Want a kick? Add some red pepper flakes! Dill, cumin, or other favorite flavors are also delicious!
Makes 4 servings
You Will Need
1 ½ pounds carrots, peeled with ends trimmed (8 to 9 carrots)
1/3 cup loosely packed fresh parsley leaves, chopped
Directions
Roast Carrots
1Heat your oven to 425°F (218C) degrees F and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil for easy cleanup.
2Chop your carrots into sticks 2 to 3 inches long. If the thicker ends are wide, cut them in half lengthwise for even cooking.
3Toss the carrot sticks with olive oil and salt on the prepared baking sheet. Spread them in a single layer. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring twice, until tender and lightly browned on the edges.
Make Garlic Parsley Butter
1While the carrots roast, melt butter in a small pan over low heat. Gently crush a garlic clove with the back of a knife, remove the skin, and add it to the melted butter and the parsley.
2Let the butter bubble gently for about 1 minute. Then, slide the pan off the heat and let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes to infuse the flavors.
3Discard the garlic clove.
To Finish
1Slide the roasted carrots into a bowl with the garlic parsley butter. Toss then season to taste with additional salt as needed.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
To make this vegan, swap the butter for vegan butter, coconut oil or olive oil.
Or, to bring out their fresh, woody flavor, add some anise. If you're roasting your carrots, toss them in olive oil first. This will help keep the moisture in them. To bring out the sweetness in your carrots, season them with orange or lemon juice or a little brown sugar and butter.
Generally speaking, it's safe (and a good idea!) to eat as many carrots as you'd like. Yes, there are rare cases where people have consumed so much beta carotene (from foods like carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, oranges and pumpkins) that their skin developed an orange hue (a condition called carotenemia).
Carrots are root vegetables that were first grown in Afghanistan around 900 AD. Orange may be their best-known color, but they also come in other hues, including purple, yellow, red, and white. Early carrots were purple or yellow. Orange carrots were developed in Central Europe around the 15th or 16th century.
However, one reason that vegetables always taste better at a restaurant is that chefs there don't hold back on using oil to boost flavor. They often use oodles of butter, oil, or bacon fat to coat veggies fried on the stove and give them an umami appeal.
Carrots. Raw carrots are fine, but cooked carrots are better for you. Cooking carrots allows beta carotene, an antioxidant compound that gets converted to vitamin A in the intestine, to absorb more easily in the body, explains Beckerman.
People can eat them raw, steamed, boiled, roasted, or as an ingredient in soups and stews. Boiling vegetables can reduce or eliminate some of the vitamin content. Raw or steamed carrots provide the most nutritional value.
Unfortunately, they pack more sugar than their equally crunchy counterparts. One medium raw carrot contains nearly 5 grams of sugar and 31 calories, while a stalk of celery provides close to 0 grams (0.4, to be exact) of sugar and 7 calories. Red and green bell peppers contain less sugar than carrots, too.
Carrots pair beautifully with warm, earthy spices like cumin, coriander, and cinnamon. Toss them with 1/4 teaspoon of one or more of these spices before roasting. Use a garlic Parmesan seasoning. Skip the honey, and toss the carrots with 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder instead.
Instead of simply tossing carrots in the vegetable drawer, take a few minutes to cut off the greens and submerge the carrots in water. You'll be rewarded with carrots that stay crisp for weeks, not days.
Tasters unanimously preferred the peel-free carrots in the glazed and roasted samples. In both cases, the skins on the unpeeled carrots became wrinkled, tough, and gritty. Their flavor was “again earthier, but not in a good way” and they weren't particularly appealing looking.
Is a carrot a fruit? This is an easy one—carrots are definitely vegetables, not fruits. Like potatoes, carrots are a type of root vegetable. The greens of the plant are edible, but carrots are grown for the bright orange (or purple, or white, or yellow) taproot growing underneath.
Something that is offered to people in order to persuade them to do something can be referred to as a carrot. Something that is meant to persuade people not to do something can be referred to in the same sentence as a `stick.
Yes, dogs can eat carrots. Carrots are an excellent low-calorie snack that is high in fiber and beta-carotene, which produces vitamin A. Plus, crunching on this orange root vegetable is great for your dog's teeth. Carrots are included as an ingredient in many dog foods as well as plenty of carrot dog treats.
Roasting intensifies the flavour by removing water. Try not to brown them too much though, which will give them a burnt-sugar taste. Use complimentary spices. Mace, which is the dried membrane that surrounds nutmeg, compliments and enhances the flavour of carrots very well.
In his newest cookbook, Milk Street: The New Home Cooking, the former America's Test Kitchen host explains that shredding root vegetables like carrots, turnips, or yams makes them taste both sweeter and fresher. The more cells you rupture, the better the taste.
There are a few possibilities for why your carrots aren't as sweet as they should be. You are right to think about your soil--a crop of carrots can deplete a soil of nutrients. Be sure to rotate crops in your garden, rather than planting carrots in the same place year after year.
Introduction: My name is Greg O'Connell, I am a delightful, colorful, talented, kind, lively, modern, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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