honey roasted carrots with garlicky yogurt sauce

This time of year, you hear a lot about pumpkins and sweet potatoes and butternut squash. And it’s all delicious. But let’s not forget about our workhorse root vegetable that’s often on the snack table with the crackers and dip. They deserve their moment too, don't they?

This holiday season, turn a humble bunch of carrots into the talk of the table with a plate of these honey glazed roasted carrots with garlicky yogurt sauce.

It’s amazing how much sweetness you can coax from a carrot after a couple turns in the oven. These get a little help from a rich honey-butter glaze made slightly acidic by red wine vinegar. Serve your warm, caramelized carrots over a cool and creamy bed of yogurt spiked with roasted garlic, lemon juice, and a bit of that honey glaze. With a final flourish of toasted walnuts and lemon zest, you may never look at carrots the same way again.

Watch the video!

Ingredients:

1 pound carrots

3 or 4 unpeeled cloves garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt

Toasted chopped walnuts

Lemon zest

Glaze:

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons butter

Yogurt:

1 cup yogurt

roasted garlic cloves

2 teaspoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons glaze

Salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425°F.

2. In a saucepan, heat the honey over medium heat until it starts to bubble and foam. Then add the vinegar, red pepper flakes, butter, and salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until glaze is slightly thickened to a syrupy consistency.

3. Slice the carrots so all are roughly the same length and thickness: leave small carrots whole, halve medium carrots lengthwise, and quarter the largest ones.

4. Arrange the carrots and unpeeled garlic cloves on a rimmed baking sheet (line with parchment to make cleanup easier). Oil and season them with salt and toss so everything is covered.

5. Brush the carrots with the glaze, then set aside the remaining glaze.

6. Roast the carrots for 15 minutes. Then take the pan out to remove the garlic cloves.

7. Turn the carrots, brush on more glaze, and put them back in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

8. Meanwhile, peel and mince the roasted garlic cloves and combine them in a bowl with the yogurt, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons of the glaze (if your glaze has stiffened, heat it up again to get back to the syrup consistency before adding it to the yogurt). Season with salt.

9. When the carrots are done, spread the yogurt sauce over the serving plate and arrange the carrots over it.

10. Drizzle any remaining glaze over the carrots and yogurt sauce (heat it up once more before drizzling). Top everything with toasted chopped walnuts and lemon zest.