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

FAQs

The Best Roasted Frozen Carrots Recipe - Build Your Bite? ›

Roast the frozen carrots at 425 degrees for 25 – 30 minutes, checking to stir/flip every 10ish minutes. You can cook them even longer for more caramelized crispy edges! This is a very forgiving recipe, and these will taste more amazing as they continue to cook a bit longer.

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.

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.

Cooking instructions

Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan, then add the carrots and parsnips and toss to coat in the oil. Add the thyme, cinnamon, star anise and some seasoning. Cook over a medium heat for 15-20 minutes, turning the vegetables frequently, until golden brown and almost cooked through.

When prepping frozen veggies, make sure to fully cover each piece in a thin layer of oil, like extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) or coconut oil. The fat will help your cauliflower or corn crisp up evenly on the outside while keeping its interior tender. Simply hand-toss them in a bowl with oil to evenly coat them.

"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.

Like with many other frozen foods, you may notice that your frozen vegetables have a texture or taste that's different from the fresh option. If texture is important to your dish, we recommend choosing fresh vegetables instead of frozen.

Acidic ingredients like lemon or vinegar, fats like butter and olive oil, spicy condiments like chile flakes or hot sauce, savory ingredients like cheese, bacon and nuts and fresh and dried herbs are all your friends when it comes to frozen vegetables.

What enhances the flavor of carrots? ›

Forgetting to flip halfway through

Leaving the pan totally unattended means that the bottom of your vegetables will burn, while the tops never crisp up. Flip halfway through, and you'll be rewarded with vegetables that are evenly cooked and golden all over.

Roasting really brings out carrots' best qualities. To make them, just toss carrots with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Bake until they're golden on the edges and tender throughout. Serve these simple roasted carrots with traditional or heavy main dishes, like standard Thanksgiving fare, lasagna or mac and cheese.

Blanch the carrots for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on their size. Plunge the carrots into the ice water to stop the cooking process then move them to a clean towel and pat dry. Freeze on a baking sheet: Spread the cooled and dried carrots on a baking sheet and freeze for about 5 hours or until frozen solid.

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.

Most of the time, you don't need to thaw frozen vegetables before cooking with them—but it depends on what you're making. For soups, stews and pastas, you can toss still frozen vegetables right into the pot. These dishes can withstand some extra moisture, and the warmth will thaw out the veggies.

To prevent them going mushy, carrots are best used from frozen, rather than defrosting them first. Chuck them into stews, casseroles, curries and soups straight from the freezer. If you want to eat them by themselves, boil, steam, pan-fry or roast them, until they're cooked through.

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.