Ah, sweet, sweet carrots. Who doesn’t love some beautiful sweet roasted carrots? Natures candy. I love fresh carrots plucked right out of the ground, but I think I prefer them roasted with butter and maple syrup just a tad bit more. It’s taking something that is already pretty perfect and making it just a little bit better.
Once you have tasted these brown butter maple carrots, you won’t want to eat your carrots any other way. They are soft, tender, caramelized, buttery, and sweet. You can serve them as a side dish, or as the star of the show. You can pile them high on some crispy toast and top with goat cheese and pepita seeds, or you can eat them straight out of the baking pan, still warm and buttery.
DETAILS
In this dish, the carrots are the star of the show. It is key to find beautiful fresh carrots. Feel free to use a variety of colored ones as well.
A runner up to the carrot is the butter. Browning the butter gives it a sweet, rich caramel flavor. If you can get your hand on a fancy butter, I always find that the fancy butter tastes better once browned. This one is my favorite.
I have made this dish many times, and I always prefer the carrots right out of the oven. They melt in your mouth. I find that they lose a bit of the buttery sweetness when kept in the fridge overnight.
I like to peel my carrots before roasting. I find that the peel has a bitter flavor, and I prefer the texture of a peeled carrot once baked. This is just a personal preference. Feel free to keep the skins on if that’s how you prefer them.
Brown Butter Maple Roasted Carrots
serves 4 - 6 people
prep time - 10 minutes
cooking time - 50 minutes
INGREDIENTS
2 lbs of carrots, peeled and chopped
3 tbsp of salted or unsalted butter
2 tbsp of maple syrup
1/2 tsp of kosher salt + extra if desired
a few grinds of coarse black pepper
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 425ºF.
Peel and chop the carrots diagonally into 2-inch sized pieces. Add them to a 2.5 quart or 9 x 12-inch baking dish. Spread the carrots evenly over the bottom of the pan without much overlap.
Place the butter into a small or medium frying pan over medium heat. Stir the butter with a spatula as it bubbles, and after 2-3 minutes, you should see brown bits appear on the bottom of the pan. Remove the frying pan from heat and continue to stir for another 30 seconds.
Add the maple syrup to the butter and stir.
Pour the maple butter mixture over the carrots and combine to coat the carrots.
Season with salt and pepper.
Place the baking dish into the oven and bake for 45 minutes, tossing the carrots in the maple butter mixture every 15 minutes or so. The carrots or done when they are soft and caramelized.
Remove from the oven, taste and season with more salt and pepper if desired. Serve warm.
