Your Cart is Empty
Roasted vegetables are some of the simplest side dishes (or if you’re vegan the main dish) you can do. With a bit of Spirits & Spice magic, they can also be the star of the plate.
Begin with chopping your vegetables into roughly equal sizes so that each piece of vegetable will cook at the same rate. If you have several different types of vegetables that you are roasting at the same time, you may want to separate them so that you can roast some longer than others. Vegetables with a high starch content, like potatoes, will take longer to roast than thinner, more delicate vegetables, like asparagus. Once you have your vegetables cut up into the desired size, now its time to have some fun.
You will need a good Extra Virgin Olive Oil or a good cooking oil, Salt, Pepper and Seasoning Blends. Roasting vegetables brings out the sweetness and deeper flavor of most vegetables, so choosing how you season them should enhance those qualities.
You have a lot of choices for a flavored oil at Spirits & Spice. What you decide to use depends on what you like and perhaps what you are pairing the vegetables with on the plate. Some of my favorite choices are our Garlic & Butter Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Roasted Garlic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and Black Truffle Garlic Butter Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Any of these flavored oils gives you a head start at building flavor. You could also try our Ginger Sesame for an Asian influence or one of our Avocado Oils, such as our Garlic Avocado Oil, which have higher smoke points than extra virgin olive oil. There are no bad choices; have a little fun with it.
Put all of your cut up vegetables in a bowl with 2 Tbsps of your chosen oil. Toss them well to coat each If you want to keep things simple, add Kosher Salt and cracked black pepper. But sometimes we don’t want simple, right? Sometimes we want “Wow”. For “Wow”, let’s add either a flavored salt from Spirits & Spice or one our spice blends.
If you want to jazz those veggies up, add one of our flavored salts. For example, our Bacon Salt is exceptional on roasted butternut squash or sweet potatoes. “Bacon makes everything better.” Right? It’s a cliche for a reason. Our Smoked Rosemary Salt combined with our Garlic & Butter Extra Virgin Olive Oil is great on roasted potatoes, zucchini, or asparagus. Our Chili Lime Salt is great for some zing on roasted sweet potatoes or butternut squash combined with our Blood Orange Avocado Oil. Our Porcini & Tartuffi spice blend combined with our Black Truffle Garlic Butter Extra Virgin Olive Oil is great on roasted mushrooms, onions or tomatoes.
A Cauliflower Steak is a great option for a main course if you are having vegans or vegetarians over for dinner (or if you are vegan yourself). And, of course, it is simply another roasted vegetable, but cut into steak size. I love our Al Pastor spice blend on a Cauliflower steak with our Chili Extra Virgin Olive Oil. It give the Cauliflower a lot of personality, depth and a bit of bite.
Our Veggies-R-Us spice blend was designed for roasting vegetables. It combines Salt, Garlic, Ancho Chile, Basil, Black Pepper, Onion, Annato, Cayenne, Chipotle pepper, to give your vegetables a boost of flavor. If you can’t decide which spice blend to start with, this is a good one to try out.
Roasting time depends on vegetable type, size, and oven temperature. Smaller pieces roast faster than large chunks, and dense root vegetables take longer than quick-cooking options like zucchini or asparagus. A sheet pan is a great way to cook roasted vegetables — and almost everyone has at least one sheet pan.
Most roasted vegetables cook at 400°F to 425°F for 15 to 35 minutes. Potatoes, brussels sprouts and other root vegetables need the longer end of that range; softer vegetables like zucchini and summer squash cook in 15 to 20 minutes. Start to pre-heat your oven before preparing the vegetables. Put your sheet pans (or whatever pans you are using) into the oven when you begin your pre-heat.
Again, cut everything to roughly the same size so pieces roast evenly. Toss them in your chosen oil. Place them on your heated sheet pan (this will help the vegetables crisp and make them stick less to the pan) and season them with your chosen spice, salt and pepper. Place the sheet pan in your oven on a rack that is one down from the top level of the oven — not too close to the broiler. If you have a convection setting on your oven, use it — it will help crisp the vegetables. Check your vegetables after about 10 minutes to make sure they are progressing. Move the pan down a rack in the oven if they are browning too quickly. Half-way through your projected cook time, remove the sheet pan from the oven and use a spatula to turn over the vegetables. Place them back in the oven and adjust your cook time if it looks like your vegetables are cooking too quickly or not quickly enough.
Most importantly, cooking should be fun. Even if you are a novice, this is something you can play around with. Taste the oil with the spice blend and imagine how they would taste on the vegetable you have chosen. Then go with your gut. It will be great!