Roasted Carrot Salad for Fall
I am a big thrifter. Like, I loved thrifting before it was so trendy, even! The great thing about thrifting is that it can be sustainable. If the products are already out there in the world, it makes sense to see if you can find them a new home to be loved, rather than them ending up in the landfill.
Earlier in the summer, I scored big time on a thrift haul; I got a fabulous plate to use for food styling (IYKYK), and also a copy of Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients Quick and Easy Food.
I’ve long loved heritage carrots; those are the ones that are all different colours, not just orange. They come in purple and different shades of yellow, and I got some recently at a farmer’s market and thought I’d share my own version of Jamie’s Roasted Carrot Salad recipe with you.
Roasting carrots (or most veg, really) helps to bring out and caramelize their natural sugars, so they are sweeter and tastier. Obviously in the summer, turning on the oven is not something many people want to do. I tend to default either to my countertop Breville Smart Oven Air or the Instant Pot, but now that it’s starting to be later in the summer/early fall, we can start thinking about turning on the oven again.
When you’re cooking with only a few ingredients, you need to make all of them count. You want a mix of flavours and textures, and this recipe has it all.
Jamie’s called for pomegranate, but I didn’t have any, so opted instead for dried cranberries, which I did have on hand, and finished the whole thing with a drizzle of pomegranate molasses, which is a lot like balsamic reduction.
An easy, warm late summer/early fall, Roasted Carrot Salad to bridge the seasons.
Roasted Carrot Salad
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked french lentils you could sub quinoa if desired
- 12 heirloom carrots, medium-sized
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries
- 1/4 cup feta or vegan feta
- 2 tbsp EVOO
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 2 tbsp pomegranate vinegar
- fresh herbs such as mint, flat leaf parsley or sorrel
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425.
- Peel the carrots and top and tail them. Slice them lengthwise either into halves or quarters, depending upon how big they are.
- Place in a large bowl and toss with salt and pepper and 1 tbsp of olive oil.
- Place on a large sheet pan and roast in the oven, tossing occasionally, until they are caramelized in places, and cooked through.
- In the bowl you used earlier, place the vinegar and the remaining EVOO and whisk together. Then add the carrots back in and toss.
- Place the carrots on a large, pretty plate, and sprinkle over the lentils and the cranberries and toss everything well together.
- Garnish with the crumbled feta, fresh herbs and then drizzle over the pomegranate molasses.