Honey Roasted Carrots

Roasted Carrots – tender baked carrots with a refreshing and welcome hint of honey, a splash of vinegar to offer tang and balance sweetness, and fresh herbs dotted throughout to add one more layer of flavor. It’s one of the best ways to prepare fresh carrots!

Flavorful Roasted Carrots

You can never have too many easy side dish recipes, especially when they are this delicious!

These roasted carrots have a highlight of sweet, a lightly caramelized and browned flavor, a nice complimentary herb flavor.

Roasting carrots just brings the perfect tempting, savory depth to them. That’s right – a tempting vegetable!

They make a delicious pairing to just about any main dish. And they’re a great way to get the kids to eat their veggies, that fair splash of honey does the trick.

Roasting vegetables is usually my favorite way to cook most vegetables and these carrots fall right in line with that as well. You’ll never want boiled carrots again!

It’s a breeze to prepare these. And here you could even cheat when you’re in a rush and just use the baby carrots from the store if you want to skip the peeling and chopping step.

Ingredients You’ll Need to Make Honey Roasted Carrots

• Carrots: Be sure to follow notes about cutting to proper sizes. Thick carrots, or at least their thicker portions need to be halved.
• Honey: You can adjust to taste. If you’d prefer you can even skip the honey and vinegar.
• Apple cider vinegar: In a pinch another type of vinegar would work like red or white wine vinegar.
• Parsley and thyme: I like to use fresh herbs but if you don’t have them on hand just use 1/3 the original amount of dried.
• Salt and pepper: Season to taste.

How to Roast Carrots

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place carrots in a mound on a 18 by 13-inch rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper and toss to evenly coat. Spread into an even layer.
3. Roast in preheated oven 20 minutes then remove from oven.
4. In a small bowl stir together honey and apple cider vinegar. Drizzle carrots with honey mixture and toss well to evenly coat.
5. Return to oven and roast about 10 to 20 minutes longer until tender. For light browning broiler near broiler element for a minute or two at the end.
6. Remove from oven, toss again and sprinkle with fresh parsley and thyme. Serve warm.

How long to roast carrots?

• At 400 degrees it takes about 30 – 40 minutes to roast carrots that have been cut into chunks (which is what we are doing here).
• Whole carrots (with a medium thickness) can take about 40 – 60 minutes to roast to tenderness.

Can I use frozen carrots?

• No don’t use frozen carrots here.
• Whenever roasting a vegetable start with fresh vegetables.
• Frozen will have add moisture and are blanched and therefor already somewhat soft.

Tips

• Use a dark baking sheet for if you want more browning and/or broil near the end of baking. We use a whopping 3 pounds of carrots here so they are a little crowded and don’t have a lot of room for steam to escape and therefor brown without a little help.
• Cut carrots as even in size as possible so they finish up about the same time. It’s a little tricky here with those tiny root ends but aim for approximately the same size.
• Toss once throughout baking for even cooking. The outer edges of a baking sheet cook hotter than the center.

Roasted Carrots Variations

• Try with other herbs such as some mint or dill in place of the thyme.
• Use lemon or lime in place of the vinegar.
• Season with spices such as a curry blend, garam masala, or even a cajun or chili seasoning.
• Skip the honey and vinegar and halfway through cooking toss with 1/2 cup grated parmesan and 1 Tbsp minced garlic instead.
• Though whole large carrots are have the best flavor, ready-to-go baby cut carrots will work as well in a pinch as long as they aren’t thin.

More Tasty Roasted Vegetable Recipes to Try

• Baked Sweet Potato Fries
• Garlic Parmesan Roasted Summer Veggies
• Family Favorite Roasted Potatoes
• Roasted Cabbage

• Roasted Potatoes Carrots and Green Beans

Photos updated 4/20/21.