Roasted Baby Carrots With Orange & Honey

My refrigerator is always full of vegetables although carrots are one vegetable that we seem to eat raw much more often than we do cooked. I’m not sure why this is because I have nothing against cooked carrots as long as they are cooked properly, but I guess we just prefer them raw in salads or as snacks.

In my kitchen exploration this week my goal was to work on a few new side dishes that would be great for an amazing Easter menu and I decided I needed to add a carrot recipe, because we all know how well carrots go with bunnies and Easter!

In the past, I’ve roasted carrots with Marsala wine and they were delicious, but I decided to lighten up the recipe a bit and adapted a recipe I found on epicurious.com that uses honey and orange. My carrots were a little larger than I had hoped (about 4-5 inches long) so I blanched them first in boiling water to precook them a bit before roasting them.

If you can find small carrots (3-4 inches in length) I’d use those and skip the blanching step. Peeling the carrots or not is a personal choice and since mine were a little on the larger side, I did go ahead and peel them. I was lucky enough to have blood oranges on hand, but any fresh orange works great in this recipe.

Buon Appetito!
Deborah Mele 

Roasted Baby Carrots With Honey & Orange

Roasted Baby Carrots With Honey & Orange

Yield: Serves 4
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes

A subtly sweet vegetable side dish that would work well with any meat or poultry entree.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 Pounds Baby Carrots, Trimmed & Cleaned
  • 3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
  • 1 Teaspoon Grated Orange Zest
  • 1/3 Cup Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice
  • 2 Tablespoons Liquid Honey
  • Sea Salt
  • Cracked Black Pepper
  • Fresh Thyme

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. If carrots are longer than 3 to 4 inches, blanch them first in a pot of boiling water until they are half cooked, about 5 minutes.
  3. Drain the carrots and place on a foil lined rimmed baking sheet.
  4. Add the oil, zest, and orange juice and toss the carrots to coat.
  5. Cover the tray with foil and roast until tender crisp, about 10 minutes.
  6. Remove the foil, add the honey and toss to coat.
  7. Roast the carrots uncovered until they begin to brown and are tender, 8 to 10 minutes.
  8. Transfer carrots to a platter and sprinkle with sea salt, cracked black pepper, and fresh thyme leaves.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 4 Serving Size: 2 cups
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 193Total Fat: 10gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 9gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 279mgCarbohydrates: 26gFiber: 5gSugar: 18gProtein: 1g

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Instagram

2 Comments

  1. Love this simple, delicious recipe for roasted carrots.  I have used blood oranges as well, really great flavour.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.