EASY VEGETABLE SIDE DISHES Everyone Will Love | Thanksgiving + Beyond!

Hello, my friends. Welcome to Clean and Delicious. I'm Dani Spees, and today I am showing you how to make four easy, healthy, delicious vegetable side dishes. Now, each of these recipes are perfect for Thanksgiving, but they are also simple enough to make any time of the year, any night of the week. So whether you're cooking for the holidays, making a family dinner, or simply meal prepping for your fabulous self for a busy week ahead, each of these gives you a really delicious way to enjoy your vegetables. Now, before we jump in, I just wanna thank Element for sponsoring this video. Element is a delicious electrolyte company who was specifically designed for people like ourselves who wanna live a healthy, active lifestyle, focusing on a more whole food, less processed approach to healthy eating, and I'm gonna share more on them in just a bit. Okay, so for our first veggie side dish, we're gonna do sauteed broccolini with fresh garlic and lemon juice. This is such a simple, such a delicious side dish, and I love broccolini, which is also sometimes called baby broccoli, because it is one of the only vegetables that requires no chopping. So there's very little prep work making this truly a no-fuss side dish. Now, if you've never worked with it before, you're gonna see that it has these long, tender stems, and then the little florets on top. And what I like to do is I just give it a rinse under some cold water, and then all you need to do is trim off the little edges because a lot of times they'll just get dried up. So you just trim that edge off, and your broccolini is ready to go. Then to cook the broccolini, you wanna grab a nice, big saute pan. You could do a 10 or a 12-inch pan. And I'm gonna start by adding just a tablespoon of olive oil to the bottom, along with four cloves of thinly sliced garlic, and then a pinch of salt and a pinch of red pepper flakes for a little bit of heat. Now, you're gonna see that that salt, what it does is it pulls the moisture out of the garlic, so it helps to gently saute the garlic in a way where the garlic begins to soften, but it doesn't get very brown. If you notice that your garlic is starting to get brown, you wanna add a tiny splash of water to the pan because that will stop it. Because once your garlic browns or burns, then there's no turning back and you have to take it from the top. So I just let that garlic saute for about a minute. You'll see that it's got a nice little sizzle to it, but it hasn't really changed color. That's when I add my broccolini to the pan. Now, I have two bunches of broccolini, which is about 12 ounces, and I'm gonna season that again with a little bit more sea salt and a little bit of black pepper, and then gently toss the greens with the garlic and the oil until it's lightly coated. And I do wanna say a side note, a lot of times when people are cooking vegetables, they add a ton of oil and it's really not necessary. If you just take your time, keep rotating this in the pan, you're gonna see that that tablespoon goes a long way. Once the broccolini has a nice light coating of the oil and the garlic, then I'm gonna add a quarter cup of water to the pan, and we're gonna pop a lid on for eight to 10 minutes. And once or twice throughout the cooking process, I'll open it up and toss the broccolini around in the pan. Now, this step is really important because this is going to allow the broccolini to soften. If you've ever tried sauteing broccolini before without this step, then you may have noticed that it can turn out very bitter or it can be kind of tough, and that is not the way it should be. When you cook your broccolini correctly, it is so delicious. It's very tender and it's mild and it's sweet, and it has a little bit of a peppery edge to it. Now, you're gonna know that your broccolini is ready to go because A, it's going to be tender, and B, the color is gonna turn to a nice, beautiful, bright, vibrant green. So I love to finish this with a couple of tablespoons of fresh lemon juice right over the top before serving it up. And then when I serve it up, I love to add a couple of fresh slices of lemon as well. This is such a quick and easy way to make a showstopper side veggie dish. And if you are making it for the holidays, it's kind of nice that you don't need any space in the stove. It happens right on the stovetop in 15 minutes. Next up to the party, we are making simply roasted potatoes with carrots and fresh thyme. Now, this is another delicious, budget-friendly side dish that is very easy to make, but it is special enough to serve on a holiday table, but also easy enough to do on a Tuesday night. And all you need is a one pound of carrots and a one pound of small potatoes. Now, what I like to do is I preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and then I'm just gonna give the carrots and the potatoes a good rinse under some cold water. Just wipe off any extra debris or dirt. Get them nice and clean. Then for your carrots, you just trim the bottom, trim the top, and then peel off the skin. And then you just wanna slice them into round coins. Now, you can go straight across, or you can do this on a bias, which is just like a slight diagonal. It's gonna taste the same either way, but it just depends on what presentation you prefer. So you want them about that thick. I'd say that's about a quarter inch. Then for the potatoes, we're gonna do the same thing. So I've got small yellow potatoes here. You could do red, you could do purple. Use what you have, use what you love. But instead of slicing them in half or in quarters, I'm gonna slice them into coins as well. So you wanna go for the same amount of thickness. You know, get as close as possible. And they're gonna look just like this. Slicing the potatoes and the carrots into the same shape not only is like really pretty when you serve it, but it helps them to cook at the same pace. From here, I'm gonna get the potatoes and the carrots into a nice big bowl. I'm gonna drizzle one tablespoon of olive oil over the top. I promise you really do not need more than that. And then a little bit of black pepper. And I have a few sprigs of fresh thyme. This could also be rosemary that I like to get in there as well. And then I'm gonna gently toss this all together. Now you're gonna notice that I didn't add any salt to that. And that is because I highly recommend that you do not salt your potatoes before roasting, right? Roasting is a high heat, dry cooking method. And if you sprinkle your potatoes with salt, that salt's gonna start to pull the moisture out of the potatoes and then they don't get as brown and crispy. So you wanna get your carrots and your potatoes onto a rimmed baking sheet. We've got them seasoned with the thyme and the black pepper. And then we are going to salt them after they come out of the oven. So I'm gonna pop this into the oven and let them cook for 30 minutes. Now, personally, I don't usually flip them because I find that when you just let them go for the full 30 minutes, they get a nice golden crispy brown on the bottom and they still have a lovely golden brown color over the top. So for me, one less step and I love the way they come out, works perfectly. If you did wanna flip them, I would say you wanna get in there after about 20 minutes, kind of shimmy shake the pan around and you could do it that way as well. Once you get them out of the oven, they're gonna be golden brown. They're gonna look just like this. They're so beautiful. And now you're gonna hit them with a generous amount of sea salt right over the top. Again, this is a super simple dish. It is a beautiful vegetable side that could go with so many main meals and it's also perfect for meal prep. So you can fit this recipe in so many different ways. Now, I don't like to pick favorites, but I think that the next veggie side dish is my favorite. It is a cinnamon spice roasted kabocha squash with a rosemary maple butter. My friends, it is so simple, but it is so good. But before I jump into the details of that recipe, I just wanna share a little bit more about today's sponsor, Element. Element is my go-to favorite electrolyte company that I lean on on a daily basis to feel hydrated and energized. Each packet contains a science-based balance of sodium, potassium, and magnesium. These are three key electrolytes that are gonna help you feel hydrated, energized, and functioning at your best, from muscle performance to having a great night's sleep. Electrolytes can really help to support you. 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Okay, this is a cinnamon spiced kabocha squash with a rosemary maple butter. We're gonna start by preheating the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. And I have a rimmed baking sheet here and I'm gonna drizzle just a little bit of olive oil on it. And then with a paper towel, I'm just gonna spread it around to create a light coating. You could also do some cooking spray here. This is just because we don't use a ton of oil on the vegetables and I wanna make sure the kabocha doesn't stick to the pan. Now, if you're not familiar with kabocha squash, it's a Japanese pumpkin that has a sweet, nutty winter squash type of flavor. Think something like a crossroad between a sweet potato and butternut squash, but it has this rich chestnut-like sweetness. I love kabocha squash. That's honestly an understatement. I'm slightly obsessed with it. I make it all of the time. Not only is it insanely delicious, but it's high in fiber and it's lower in both calories and carbohydrates than butternut squash and sweet potatoes. So if you like high volume meals that are lower in calories, kabocha is a fantastic vegetable to add to your diet. Now, to prep the squash, I do like to give it a rinse under some cold water to start because we eat the skin. So we're just gonna give it a little rinse, make sure she didn't roll around on the floor at the grocery store. And then the hardest part of this is cutting the squash in half. So what you wanna do is you wanna get your biggest, heaviest, sharpest knife and you're gonna wedge it into that squash. I like to kinda rock it back and forth a bit and you wanna get your weight over it and you're just gonna work your way into the squash. If I can really wedge it in there, sometimes I'll just use the weight of the squash and give it a bang or two and that also helps to get the squash open. If that is an intimidating step to you, a lot of times at the grocery store, you can find them already cut in half and like wrapped in plastic wrap. So that's something to look for at the grocery store. And some grocery stores, just as a side note, if you ask, they will cut it in half for you in the back. So inside tip, you can ask that at some grocery stores. Okay, so once you have it open, you wanna remove the seeds and any of this like stringy membrane that you see on the inside. Really, you're doing the same exact thing you would be doing if you were working with a pumpkin or any other variety of winter squash. Then I take one of the halves, I lay it flat side down and from here, I kinda cut it the way I would if I was working with a cantaloupe. So I cut it into wedges and then I just lay it down and then right into bite-sized chunks. I'll get all of that into a nice big bowl and then I'm gonna season this again with one tablespoon of olive oil. A little goes a long way. A teaspoon, maybe a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon and then a fat pinch of sea salt. And yes, I know I just told you that I don't like to salt my potatoes before I roast them but kabocha squash is a lot drier so it doesn't really pull a lot of liquid so I don't mind salting the kabocha before it goes into the oven. Gently toss this all together, get all of that cinnamon and the salt and the oil lightly coated on all of your squash and then I will just transfer this onto our prepared baking sheet. And you wanna be careful not to overcrowd the pan. It's fine if the pan is full but you want everything in a single layer and ultimately laying down as flat as possible. All right, so this is going into our 425 degree oven for 30 minutes. Again, I don't usually flip the squash. If you like to, you are welcome to do that. I would do that at about the 20 minute mark but I usually just let it go the whole time on one side. Now while that's cooking, we are gonna make the holiday wow factor for this dish. Let me just say, simple roasted kabocha squash just like this, the cinnamon, the salt, delicious or if you wanted to do like garlic powder or curry powder, all of that is delicious and very simple but for the holidays, we're gonna make this maple butter with the fresh rosemary. It's so good, it's so easy. So first, you're gonna chop your fresh rosemary. If you've never worked with it before, all you're doing is taking a sprig of rosemary, you're pulling these little pine looking leaves down and away and then just take your knife and keep on chopping until you've got them nice and fine. Then into a small bowl, I have two tablespoons of butter and to that, I'm adding two tablespoons of maple syrup. I'm gonna just pop this in the microwave for 20 or 30 seconds. If preferred, you could also do it on the stovetop and then once it comes out, you give it a good stir and then add a couple teaspoons of the fresh rosemary to the maple butter. First of all, the smell that comes up is insanity but secondly, this on the squash, just trust me. Now you're gonna know your kabocha is ready to go because it's gonna have a nice golden brown color and it's going to be fork tender. So from here, you're just gonna transfer it onto your serving dish and then you're gonna take that insanely delicious rosemary maple butter and you're just gonna drizzle it right over the top. And I'm just telling you like just between you and I, this is truly a must make recipe. It is so good. So when you try it, you come back here and you let me know what you think. Okay, my fourth and final vegetable side dish that is special enough for Thanksgiving or the holidays but easy enough for a Tuesday night or a family dinner are my steamed Brussels sprouts with fresh garlic, nutmeg and Parmesan cheese. Another showstopper. So first things first, we're gonna rinse our Brussels sprouts under some cold water and then to prep the Brussels sprouts, all you have to do is trim off this little brown edge and then I'm just gonna slice them in half. If the Brussels sprouts were really big, you could quarter them but mine aren't. They're just like a nice kind of small to medium sized Brussels sprouts so we're just gonna go in half. Other than the Brussels sprouts, the only other thing that I need to prep is a little bit of fresh garlic. So I'm gonna use five cloves of fresh chopped garlic and get it nice and fine for this recipe. Then over on the stove, I have this lovely pan which is a saute pan but also serves as a steamer. So it's very convenient. I'll link it for you in the description box below if you wanna check it out. I'm gonna get a little bit of water into the bottom of the pan, let it come up to a boil, then we're gonna add in the steamer basket and add the Brussels sprouts. By the way, that's one pound of Brussels sprouts. Pop the lid on, set your timer for eight to 10 minutes. The goal is for the Brussels sprouts to soften and to become fork tender but you don't want them to get mushy, right? You want them to maintain a little bit of integrity. So we're looking for fork tender but still they have a nice vibrant color and they're holding their shape well. Now these look perfect so I'm gonna shut the heat off and quick side note, don't underestimate how delicious a simply steamed vegetable can be. Like this on a busy weeknight truly could be an awful little salt, pepper, garlic powder and you've got yourself a lovely side dish but we are of course gonna take this one step further. So I'm gonna carefully remove the Brussels sprouts, get any excess water out of the pan and then I'm gonna heat a tablespoon of olive oil in the pan and then we're gonna add that fresh garlic along with a pinch of red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt. Gently toss that around. Now because my pan was hot, I can see the garlic is cooking quickly so I'm gonna add just a small splash of water to the pan as well very carefully. This is just going to help to slow the cooking down because again, you don't want the garlic to brown. We're looking for it to become like really tender and soft and fragrant but we're not looking for brown and we're certainly not looking for burnt. Once the garlic looks like mine looks here, we've got the raw edge off and it's like sizzly and bubbly, we are ready for the Brussels sprouts. So I'm gonna add the steamed Brussels sprouts back into the pan and then I'm gonna add a little bit of freshly grated nutmeg over the top. Again, it's a little things like this that create a wow factor. You just need about a quarter teaspoon to a half a teaspoon and it has this really nutty holiday-like flavor that just turns this into like the coziest side dish. So get that in there, a little bit more salt, a little bit of black pepper. I'm gonna gently toss this together until everything has a light coating and then we're gonna finish this with a few tablespoons of fresh grated Parmesan cheese. I like the grated Parmesan cheese, you could also do shredded Parmesan cheese, they both would work. So I shut the heat off here and I just sprinkle the cheese in and give it one last toss and that's it, this side dish is ready to go. Of course, right before serving, you wanna give it one extra sprinkle of parm over the top and if you like heat, an extra sprinkle of the red pepper flakes. This is another simple vegetable side dish that delivers so much flavor and if you or anybody you know, anybody in the family thinks they don't like Brussels sprouts, just do me a favor and just try this recipe. Just give it a try and then come back and report and let me know. Did we change your mind? Did we make you a Brussels sprout believer because I'm telling you, it is just that good. As always, I want to thank you for watching this video. If you enjoy recipes like this, take a moment to like the video and subscribe to the channel and thank you again to Element for sponsoring this video. I'm gonna see you guys back here next week with some more clean and deliciousness. Cheers.