ROASTED VEGETABLES |

Roasted vegetables are an easy and delicious way to enjoy your veggies and hands down, a simple cooking technique every home cook should have in their back pocket. I'm Dani Spees and today I'm showing you how to make the most delicious roasted vegetables. And here's the thing, while roasted vegetables are very easy to make, there are a few tips and tricks that you want to keep in mind just to ensure that your veggies are cooked to perfection. And the first one is to get your oven nice and hot. That high, high heat is gonna help to char and brown the outside of the vegetables while keeping the inside nice and tender. So I'm gonna start by preheating my oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Then the next decision you need to make is what type of vegetables do you want to roast? Now this is less of an exact science and more of a basic technique, but you do want to try to find vegetables that are fairly similar to one another and cook at the same rate. So for instance, I'm roasting cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, radishes, and red onions. They're all lower starch vegetables and will cook up in about 15 to 20 minutes. If you were working with starchier vegetables, say sweet potatoes, beets, potatoes, butternut squash, then they would pair really well together because they all take about 25 to 30 minutes to cook. So you just want to plan your veggies accordingly. And you will see down in the description box below, I have a link that brings you to the recipe where you can print the recipe out. And I will also have a little extra guidance about vegetables and cooking times in that blog post as well. The next important tip to keep in mind is that you want to cut all of your vegetables into fairly uniform sizes, because this again is going to help the veggies cook at the same rate. So in my case, that means cutting my broccoli and my cauliflower into florets. And a little pro tip here for you, always work from the stem side up and then separate the florets, because this is going to keep your broccoli and your cauliflower from crumbling into little bits. It's a really clean break. It's just makes the perfect little floret. As for my carrots, I'm going to peel them, trim off the sides, and then slice them in half lengthwise and cut them into nice hearty chunks. Again, how you cut them is really going to depend on the size of your carrots, but more or less we're just looking for fairly uniform size pieces. Next up, I have radishes. So I just trim off the top and the bottom. And because these are nice and big, I'm going to cut them into quarters. And then finally, one red onion, which when it cooks up in the oven, gets so sweet and buttery. Can't wait for that. And what I like to do with my onion is cut it in half, peel off the outer papery layer, lay it flat side down, then make one horizontal slice and two vertical slices over the top. Then you can just cut them into nice chunky bite-sized pieces. The veggies you choose are definitely flexible, so use what you have, use what you love. But for this base recipe, you're going to want somewhere between eight to 10 cups of vegetables. And I'm just going to get all of my veggies into a nice big bowl, and then we're going to season them. Very simply, I'm just going to drizzle two tablespoons of olive oil over the top. You could also use a little bit of avocado oil here. One teaspoon of sea salt, about half a teaspoon of black pepper, and then one teaspoon of garlic powder. And then I find the easiest way to bring this all together is just to get my hands in there and gently toss till all the veggies have a nice light coating of oil and all of those spices. And this is definitely a fun place to experiment. So if you wanted to add some Italian seasoning, some curry powder, a little bit of cumin, whatever you love, this would be the time to sprinkle it in. The next thing you want to keep in mind is you want to roast your vegetables on a rimmed baking sheet. These are also called half-sheet pans. The reason is is that that metal is going to help to conduct the heat, get those nice, crispy, golden brown edges, and the edges are going to help so that nothing falls off of the pan. If you were to try to do this in a glass pan, your veggies would get very soft and soggy, and you would not get that deep, dark caramelization on the vegetables that taste so good when you roast them up. I like to give the baking sheets just a little bit of cooking spray, just one extra layer of protection to make sure that nothing sticks, and then add the vegetables right onto the baking sheets. It's really important that they are spread out and that they're not super crowded on the pan because if they're super crowded on the pan, they're going to end up steaming in the oven, and we're not going to benefit from that delicious caramelized flavor that you get from roasting your vegetables. Another thing to keep in mind is I have found that when I roast two pans of vegetables in the oven at the same time, sometimes the steam from the bottom rack rises up in the oven, and all of the veggies don't get as browned as they could. So if you can, try to roast the pans one at a time because this is going to ensure that you get the most delicious roasted vegetables. And then when you're about halfway through, you can take the pan out, flip your veggies, and this way you'll get some color on both sides of the vegetables. On another note, you can also not flip them when you're doing lower starch vegetables like this, and just let that one side get a really deep golden brown color. Both techniques work, so I suggest you give them both a try. See which one you prefer. Once the veggies are done, you're going to see that they have this beautiful golden color on the outside. They're nice and tender in the middle, and they are just perfect as a quick weeknight side. They're a great main dish if you serve them with your favorite meal or a whole grain pasta, and they're also perfect for the holidays. You know I'm a big meal prep girl, so I love making a couple trays on the weekend. Then I'll transfer them into an airtight container and use them for easy dishes throughout the week. So now I'm super excited for you to give this technique a try, and when you do, comment down to the comments below and let me know what veggie combination you went with and how you liked it. And if you haven't already, please take a moment to subscribe to the channel, like this video, and share it with anybody else you know who wants to make healthy eating easy. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Dani Spees, and I'll see you back here next time with some more clean and deliciousness. Cheers. Just in short. Boy, I can't. So I just popped the lid off. Oh boy. Ah! Okay, ready? Butternuts. Then you can just come right over the top. Then you can just, then you can just cut them.