Butter Braised Carrots with Thyme Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What makes carrots taste better? ›

Roasting really brings out carrots' best qualities. To make them, just toss carrots with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Bake until they're golden on the edges and tender throughout. Serve these simple roasted carrots with traditional or heavy main dishes, like standard Thanksgiving fare, lasagna or mac and cheese.

Honey or Pure Maple Syrup.

Both are absolutely scrumptious with carrots and enhance their natural sweetness. We use honey most often, but maple syrup is a fun change of pace and also a good option if you'd like the sautéed carrots vegan.

Cut carrots into 1/8 in rounds or 1/4 in dice. In a wide, low pot melt butter over medium heat, add carrots and cook about 3 minutes, stirring frequently until carrots have a "glazed" look.

Here's how long to cook carrots on the stove top depending on how they're cut: 7 to 9 minutes for ¼-inch slices. 4 to 6 minutes for strips. 8 to 10 minutes for baby carrots.

Flavor Enhancements

Use spearmint, marjoram, a small bay leaf, thyme, grated ginger root, chopped chives, dill or parsley.

Seasoning carrots is a great way to help bring out their flavor. For a simple and versatile seasoning, stick with salt, pepper, and garlic. For an herbier taste, add rosemary, parsley, cumin, or coriander. Or, to bring out their fresh, woody flavor, add some anise.

However, it does matter how you slice it—according to Christopher Kimball. 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.

Although, carrots flavor profiles can change slightly depending on its size, color, and how it was grown. Typically though, if you want to enhance a carrot's flavor, they normally pair well with things such as ginger, garlic, honey, sugar, maple, and citrus fruits like lemon and orange.

Brunoise: Tiny cubes cut from julienne sticks that are 1/8 x 1/8 x 1/8 inches. Small dice: Small cubes cut from batonnet sticks that are 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 inches. Medium dice: Medium cubes cut from baton sticks that are 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 inches. Large dice: Large cubes that are roughly 3/4 x 3/4 x 3/4 inches.

Why cut carrots diagonally? ›

Cutting vegetables on the diagonal exposes more of the vegetable's surface area to the heat. Besides making the vegetable cook more quickly, it also allows it to absorb more of the sauces and seasonings it is cooked with. This type of cut also makes the finished dish look pretty.

There is, however, a trick to getting roasted carrots right. Undercook them, and the texture is tough and dense. Overcook them, and they're dry and wrinkled. The secret is to soften the carrots slightly by boiling them briefly before roasting.

Overcooked vegetables are mushy or dry, sometimes both at the same time! What's happened, is the cell structures of the vegetables have been damaged creating mushiness and the liquid inside may have been released to cause dryness.

Some vegetables contain water-soluble vitamins and phytochemicals and these can leech out when boiled. Picture boiling carrots; if you leave them to boil too long the water takes on an orange hue, which comes from some of the vitamins.

Carrots go well with orange, either for savory or sweet dishes. They help to increase the sweetness in a pleasant way. Other citrus, such as lemon, can enhance the carrot flavors too. Add a little brown sugar to carrots to bring out the sweetness in carrots.

The simple answer to why roasted vegetables from a restaurant taste so good: lots of fat and salt and high heat.

Try adding salt while cooking. Salt can remove the bitterness.