Roasted carrots & sweet potatoes

A versatile ingredient
Carrots have a naturally sweet flavour, allowing you to do so many things with them, whether they are raw or cooked. There was a time when a moulded carrot salad was very fashionable, but it never appealed to me and luckily there are many more things we can do with this healthy veggie.

You can boil then, blanch them, stir-fry them, roast them, blend them and even bake with them. Add a little extra punch to cooked carrots by seasoning them with different flavours. Orange, aniseed, caraway seeds, cumin, dill, fennel, ginger and curry are just a few seasonings that work well with carrots. Try any Asian flavours, honey, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Carrots are ideal to bulk up a stew or mince dish and when grated, you can hide them from any child that won’t normally eat raw carrots. Cubes of carrots add a lovely colour and texture to a rice dish, or cut carrots into ribbons with a vegetable peeler and add to a salad. Carrots are always a yummy, crunchy snack in a lunchbox or dipped in hummus, cottage cheese or an avocado dip.

An easy delicious, side dish
In this recipe, the naturally sweet taste of carrots and sweet potatoes is even better when these vegetables are roasted in the oven. Serve this simple but very flavourful side dish with braaied fish, pork or grilled chicken.

Recipe

Roasted carrots & sweet potatoes

Serves 6

Ingredients

250 g small carrots, whole

250 g medium carrots, peeled and quartered lengthwise

4 small sweet potatoes, skin on, cut into wedges

3 cloves garlic, sliced

45 ml (3 tbsp) olive oil

10 ml (2 tsp) caraway seeds

15 ml (1 tbsp) honey or soft brown sugar

handful fresh mint leaves

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 °C. Place all the ingredients, except the mint, in a large mixing bowl and mix to coat the veggies with oil.
2. Place the veggies on a large baking tray lined with baking paper and roast 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. The time will depend on the size of the veggies. Serve with fresh mint.

Tips

1. Use butternut in this dish, if preferred.
2. Use cumin seeds if caraway seeds are not available. It will give a completely different flavour, but will be just as delicious.

Photo by: Adel Ferreira
This recipe was shared in the LiG Tydskrif Winter issue 2023. This recipe was originally developed for my cookbook Make five/Maak vyf.