holiday recipes - grace grits and gardening

I was making my favorite roasted carrots and parsnips recipe for book club last week and thought I should definitely share it with you before the holidays. This is one of my go-to side dishes, perfect for so many reasons.

Not every single side dish must be heavily laden with cream of chicken soup. You know?
This recipe provides the perfect opportunity to use all those herbs you’ve been growing all year.
Leftover roasted carrots and parsnips will elevate your pot pie recipe in an amazing way!
Yes, Bugs Bunny spoke the truth—carrots are high in Vitamin A which promotes overall good eye health.
Parsnips (first cousin to the carrots) are super healthy too! Back in the day, our ancestors ate parsnips instead of potatoes. That’s a fact..

via GIPHY

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

Roasted Carrots & Parsnips

A colorful and flavorful side dish - perfect for all your family gatherings!

5 from 1 vote

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Ingredients

2 lbs carrots, cleaned
2 lbs parsnips, cleaned
6 Tbsp olive oil
3 tsp sea salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
4 Tbsp minced shallot
4 Tbsp finely chopped fresh chives
3 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
3 tsp chopped fresh thyme
2 cloves garlic, minced

Instructions

Heat oven to 450 degrees.
Cut the carrots and parsnips into uniform matchsticks (approx 2 inch x 1/4 inch). Toss with olive oil in a large bowl until thoroughly coated. Sprinkle in salt and pepper and toss again. Transfer into your favorite 10x15 inch Pyrex casserole dish.
Roast on center rack of the oven, stirring every fifteen minutes until the vegetables are browned and cooked to your liking. This will take approximately 45 minutes.
While the carrots are roasting, combine butter, shallot, garlic, and herbs in a small bowl and whisk together. (You could use this recipe for compound butter too...)
Remove carrots from oven, pour butter/herb mixture over, and toss to coat. Enjoy immediately.

Recipe notes:

For extra color, I like to use tri-colored carrots, especially the dark plum-colored ones.

I scrub the carrots but don’t peel them. So much of the health benefits are contained in the skin of vegetable. Bonus: not-peeling is a huge time saver!

I usually cut up my carrots and parsnips well before I make the dish. Store them in a Tupperware container in standing water to keep them fresh.

Most recently, I used lemon thyme in this recipe, because that’s the thyme variety I’m growing. It added an extra flavor brightness (or maybe that was my imagination).

Depending on serving size, this recipe will likely feed more than eight people.