The Best Roasted Frozen Carrots Recipe - Build Your Bite (2024)

FAQs

Should you thaw frozen carrots before roasting? ›

Your frozen carrots go directly from the freezer to the oven, without thawing. This is important! The carrots will take a brief detour as you toss them with seasonings and a few other ingredients. Then into the oven they go to roast for 20-30 minutes.

Roasting carrots

You can roast the carrots from frozen. Place on a baking tray, drizzle with a little oil and seasoning and roast at 210C/200C fan/gas 7 for about 10-15 minutes, depending on their size, until cooked all the way through.

Boil the carrots and butternut squash first for aprox 8 minutes, then add in the parsnips and swede and cook all together for another 5 minutes. Drain, and place in a shallow roasting tray with a drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Roast for 20 – 30 minutes till golden and crisp.

Undercook them, and the texture is tough and dense. Overcook them, and they're dry and wrinkled. The secret is to soften the carrots slightly by boiling them briefly before roasting. The texture will be firm-tender with just the right amount of caramelization on the outside.

"Frozen vegetables tend to release water quickly and can end up quite mushy if done improperly," says William Goldfield, director of corporate communications at Dole Food Company, Inc. Defrosting frozen vegetables, such as spinach, broccoli, peas, carrots, and kale properly can help you avoid this.

First, pick a frozen vegetable then preheat your oven to 400°F. Add your still-frozen vegetables (with absolutely nothing on them—Liz says adding oil at this stage will actually trap in the moisture, causing soggy veggies) to a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast for 25 to 30 minutes.

This is actually due to moisture loss that occurs in the freezer. But the rubber-like texture of your carrots can also be influenced by a few factors such as slow freezing, using old and wilted carrots for storing, improper storage/container, or over blanching.

Your body has an easier time absorbing the carotenoids in carrots if you eat them cooked rather than raw. Cooking breaks down the vegetable's cell walls, making its nutrients more available. Of course, how you cook them matters—boiling vegetables can leach out nutrients, so it's better to steam, sauté, or roast.

How healthy are roasted carrots? ›

Yes, carrots are good for you, as they're chock full of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that support immunity; support heart, kidney, and liver health; and provide other health benefits, making them an excellent addition to your diet. They're low-calorie and versatile snacks, too.

Flavor Enhancements

Use spearmint, marjoram, a small bay leaf, thyme, grated ginger root, chopped chives, dill or parsley.

I only boil these for a couple of minutes; you don't want them fully cooked when you par-boil. You want them partially cooked so that you can finish them off by roasting them. If you don't par cook the carrots, they will cook faster on the outside than the inside when they are in the oven.

Luckily, for many dishes, you can toss your frozen carrots right into whatever you're cooking. So not much waiting around for that 5-star carrot dish. However, if you do need to defrost those carrots, you can do so a couple different ways that don't involve a microwave, which will typically leave them mushy.

Don't thaw frozen vegetables:

Even if you pat them dry, they'll still cook up to be soggier than if you cooked them straight from the freezer because they've absorbed a good deal of the water already.

Frozen carrots are best used in soups, stews, casseroles, or other hot dishes. You don't even need to thaw them, or shorten the cooking time, when using them in these kinds of recipes. If you want to thaw frozen carrots and eat them in cold dishes, they won't be as good as fresh ones.