Bring out the natural flavor of carrots! These easy roasted carrots with a simple 3-ingredient honey-ginger glaze make an ideal side dish for holiday dinners. Read on for five tips to help you make the best roasted honey-ginger carrots!
❤️ Why this recipe works
- These roasted carrots with ginger and honey are sweet with a little heat. Glazing and roasting intensify their naturally sweet flavor.
- Sometimes late winter root vegetables don't have the same flavor as those freshly pulled from the garden. While I was excited to find these rainbow carrots in the market this week, their flavor just didn't compare to those I grew last summer.
- Roasting and glazing with this sweet and pungent honey-ginger glaze, however, brings them to life! It makes a simple carrot side dish something to be savored.
Love roasted carrots? Try these Roasted Carrots with Honey-Mustard Glaze, too.
🛒 Ingredients
Before we get to the full recipe for honey-ginger roasted carrots, here are a few notes about the ingredients and possible substitutions you can make.
- carrots: you can use multi-coloured carrots (also called rainbow carrots), regular orange carrots, or even baby carrots in this recipe.
- honey: adds a natural sweetness that enhances the flavor of carrots.
- ginger: adds a peppery, spicy sweetness when combined with honey.
- dried chili flakes: these add an element of surprise and a little heat to spice up your carrots! (optional, of course).
🔪 5 Tips to make the best roasted carrots
Oven-roasting brings out the best in root vegetables. Not only that, they are easy to prepare. Just toss them on a pan and pop them in the oven, right?
Well, no. Not exactly. Here are 5 tips to make the best roasted carrots.
1. Roast them whole. While you'll want to cut other root vegetables into uniformly sized pieces, carrots are particularly good roasted whole. They're just pretty, and part of what appeals to our senses when we sit down to eat is how our food looks on our plates.
Toss the carrots with olive oil, honey, freshly grated ginger, and a smattering of dried chili flakes.
2. Use a sheet pan with a low rim. Heat a sheet pan in the oven for a few minutes, then line it with a sheet of parchment paper to make clean-up easier. Arrange the carrots in a single layer on the baking sheet.
Roasting in the oven causes the natural sugars in root vegetables to caramelize and the proteins to brown, resulting in that sought-after sweetness, sometimes with crispy singed edges.
Don't try to roast vegetables in a pan with high curved sides. The vegetables release their moisture and the sides of the pan direct it back down so that they end up being steamed and not roasted. Read: soft and mushy. Not the crisp and tender veggies you're looking for.
3. Space them out on the sheet pan. The amount of surface area is paramount. These carrots need their own piece of real estate. Don't dump them on top of one another. The more space they have, the more caramelization you will achieve.
Their surfaces need to be in contact either with the hot pan or the hot air circulating in the oven. Sometimes when I'm cooking for a group, I'll spread my veggies out on 3 baking sheets and use the convection feature of my oven to avoid crowding them.
4. Flip them over. Partway through roasting time, remove the baking pans from the oven and turn the carrots over. You want them to be slightly browned on both sides, not just dark on one side and light on the other. Give them a toss once or twice during their cooking time.
5. Serve them right away. Try to time them so they'll be finished roasting just when the rest of your meal is ready to serve. They're best when they're hot right from the oven.
❓Frequently Asked Questions
If you're using baby carrots, they are already peeled. Fresh carrots from the garden may only need a scrub with a vegetable brush under running water. If they're older, definitely peel them.
For a holiday dinner, you should cook about 1 to 1 ½ carrots per person. If you're using baby carrots, 1 cup (about 12) of baby carrots would be one serving.
Of course, these amounts will depend on how many other vegetable side dishes you're serving, and on the appetites of your friends!
Read more about estimating amounts of vegetables to cook in this article What is a Serving of Vegetables?
🍽 Serving suggestions
These honey-ginger glazed carrots go well with roast turkey or chicken or any of the following main dishes:
- Air Fryer Rolled Stuffed Turkey Breasts
- Easy Baked Lemon Chicken
- Asian Glazed Garlic Chicken
- Air Fryer Garlic Parmesan Chicken
- Crispy Fennel Crusted Salmon
Serve them with Instant Pot Garlic Mashed Potatoes or Crispy Lemon Oven Roasted Potatoes.
🕑 Storing leftover roasted carrots
Refrigerate any leftover carrots promptly, as bacteria can start to multiply after two hours or so. These honey carrots will last in the fridge for a few days. You can reheat them in the microwave or the oven.
I love experimenting and finding new recipes to create with different vegetables, like these Fennel Orange Roasted Beets, Lemon Tahini Roasted Vegetables and Air Fryer Carrots with Feta and Pistachios. Enjoy!
🌟 Did you make this recipe?
When you make these honey-ginger carrots, please leave a comment and a star rating below. Thanks!
🍽 More delicious side dish recipes
- Quick Pickled Shallots with Apple Cider Vinegar
- Baby Bok Choy and Mushroom Stir-Fry
- Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Maple Sweet Potatoes with Pecans and Cranberries
- Air Fryer Acorn Squash with Maple and Cinnamon
📖 Recipe
Easy Roasted Carrots with Honey-Ginger Glaze
Ingredients
- 12 medium carrots peeled (about 1 pound)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil extra-virgin
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 teaspoons fresh ginger, finely grated
- ½ teaspoon dried chili flakes
- 2 teaspoons fresh chopped parsley, for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Whisk olive oil, honey, ginger and chile flakes together.
- Toss the carrots with the glaze.
- Heat the baking sheet in the oven for a few minutes before adding the carrots.
- Space them out on the sheet.
- Roast carrots for 15 - 20 minutes or until fork tender, turning once halfway through.
- Garnish with fresh parsley, if desired. Serve immediately.
Kayla
Got lots of compliments when I made these last night! That little hint of ginger is sensational!
Elaine
Thanks Kayla, Happy to hear this recipe was a hit! Thanks for taking the time to comment and rate it!
Cecilia Inness
Gave hubby the night off cooking and made these but added sweet potatoes, zucchini and red onion.. A definite hit! I will definitely make them again. By the way, I keep a lump of ginger in the freezer and just grate it as needed. Whatever is left goes into stir fry or hot tumeric drink.
Flavour & Savour
That's a great idea, Cecilia! Sounds delish! And thanks for the tip about storing ginger in the freezer. I agree, grating ginger is often so much easier than mincing. Thanks for commenting 🙂
Jackie
You have inspired me to deal with fresh ginger. I don't use it very much and usually in very small amounts. So, it sits in the fridge until it is ugly and has to be thrown out. I am going to try peeling it, grating it and freezing it on parchment paper in 1 tsp mounds, then placing in a freezer container. Apparently you can also freeze medallions, or chunks, although they last 3 months versus the 6 months for the grated ginger. This will help me to be able to make these whenever I want without having to shop for the ginger. Thank you for all of your yummy recipes, Elaine!
Flavour & Savour
Great idea! Thanks for sharing it with the rest of us. My excess ginger seems to end up in my stir-fries or smoothies. I love peach and ginger together and that makes a yummy smoothie. Thanks for commenting!