12 Ways to Elevate Roasted Carrots and Make Them the Star of Your Meal

If there’s one reliable vegetable dish that everybody loves, it’s roasted carrots. The humble carrot is a crowd pleaser with kids and adults alike, and roasting them makes them even sweeter and more delicious. Plus, they’re not as polarizing as other roasted vegetables like cauliflower, brussels sprouts, or fennel are, so they’re always a safe bet as the veggie to buy in your weekly grocery shopping. Carrots are affordable, and easy to cook, making them a winning choice for a side to any main meal at your family lunches or weeknight dinners.

They taste good on their own, and don’t need too much added to them to turn them into something even better. But there are a couple of simple ways to give them an extra flavor enhancer that will make you want to keep cooking roasted carrots over and over. From adding a glaze, dressing, sauce, or some delicious toppings, there are many opportunities for making a simple meal into something that will sing. Here are some ways to give your roasted carrots a flavor boost and make them the star of your meal.

One way to give roasted carrots an edge is to throw on a savory sprinkle. These add not only flavor, but also some texture. There are different sprinkles you can choose from, like zaatar, dukkah, and even everything bagel seasoning. However, in our experience, dukkah is one of the most delicious to use on carrots. Dukkah is an Egyptian nut, seed, and spice mix. While blends vary, it can contain things like crushed peanuts, hazelnuts, and almonds, sesame seeds, and spices like cumin and coriander. These are all mixed together in a chunky seasoning that adds a bit of crunch and tasty nuttiness.

The warming spices like cumin complement the sweetness of carrots beautifully, and the nuttiness of the nuts and seeds gives the whole dish an earthier and richer taste. Plus, the crunch, when paired with the softness of the carrots, makes each bite more interesting. It’s guaranteed that a sprinkle of dukkah on your roasted carrots can make it feel like a restaurant-worthy dish.

Since dukkah is ready to eat, you can toss it straight onto your cooked carrots. In fact, adding your dukkah along with the carrots in the oven can lead to the seeds and nuts burning, so it’s best to avoid that. Otherwise, just add them in the last ten minutes of cooking if you want everything to be warmed through together.

For a lot of people who grew up eating roasted carrots in their childhood, this may be a nostalgic one. A honey butter glaze not only combines the best of both a heavenly sweetness and the luxuriousness of butter, but it’s also reminiscent of the sweet glazed carrots that are a family staple in many households. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when the classics are just so consistently good.

With just two ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen, you can give carrots a sweet, simple glaze that will make them the most effortless side dish. Simply melt some butter in a saucepan, then add in your honey and mix well until you have one uniform liquid. Then, pour that over your carrots and pop them in the oven. If you’re not a fan of honey, you can use other sweeteners, such as some brown sugar that you dissolve in the melted butter. Plus, if you’d like to enhance the flavor even more, you can add a pinch of cinnamon or even some nutmeg to your butter glaze.

To avoid the mess of cleaning up a sticky sauce in your baking dish, line it with some parchment paper before adding your carrots and glaze. When your carrots come out of the oven, you can serve them as-is or give them a light squeeze of lemon to add a hit of brightness to balance the sweetness.

One way to give your carrots a flavor boost is by serving them with a great sauce. But when it comes to carrots, it’s not exactly easy to know what kind of sauce to go with. You need something that’s going to balance their sweetness and enhance their earthiness, and a yogurt sauce does just that. Yogurt is tangy and creamy, and really adds to the flavor of carrots in many ways. At the same time, it’s really light, so it won’t overpower your carrots or make them feel too heavy the way other creamy sauces might.

If you use good quality thick yogurt, like Greek-style yogurt, you don’t need much to make it a tasty sauce. Perhaps some olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a couple of seasonings would do the trick. You can keep it easy with just some salt and pepper, or throw in spices or dried herbs like cumin, paprika, thyme, or mint. Another trick we recommend is blending some feta into the yogurt sauce. The feta’s flavor blends seamlessly with the tanginess of the yogurt, while adding a touch more salt and umami. Your carrots will taste incredible laid on a bed of whatever type of yogurt sauce you go with. A pro tip is to combine both dukkah and yogurt sauce in one epic roasted carrot dish. Lay your carrots on the yogurt and sprinkle the dukkah on top to finish.

This one is for people who love a little kick in their food. Gochujang is an old pantry staple in Korean cooking, and is a paste made from red chilis and fermented soybeans (among other things). It packs a punch of not just the heat from the chilis, but also a powerful and delightfully savory flavor. Giving your carrots a coating of gochujang as you roast them is a sure-fire way to boost their flavor tenfold. Plus, the nifty thing about gochujang is that it will caramelize and get smoky as it cooks in the oven, so you’re not just roasting your carrots, but roasting your gochujang, too.

If you’re using gochujang paste, you really don’t need to add anything else, but a little rub of olive oil on your carrots first can help keep everything from drying out. You can find gochujang at just about any Asian grocery store, but it’s become so popular globally that you’ll likely also find it at any major supermarket.

Something that goes really well with roasted carrots is citrus of all kinds. The acid adds a lot of freshness to this roasted vegetable and helps bring out all its carroty goodness even more. To keep things on the sweet side, (and even keep in line color-wise) oranges are the perfect choice. To take things to the next level, add extra zing with some ginger, such as in our roasted carrots and with ginger and orange recipe. Orange and ginger play well together and add a fruity warmth to the whole dish.

While the recipe uses rainbow carrots, this orange and ginger dressing will suit any type of carrot. Use both the zest and the juice of the oranges and use fresh ginger to give everything an extra kick. Then, toss your roasted carrots along with the juice and zest, grated fresh ginger, olive oil, and an optional addition of fresh cilantro and sesame seeds. Dressing your roasted carrots this way will certainly make them the star of the meal.

If you’re looking for just one ingredient that has it all, then you’ve got to use Tajín. Tajín gives you fruity acidity, spice, flavor, and salt in one spice mix. This popular seasoning went from being a family recipe to a global spice staple, and it’s easy to see why; everything it touches becomes infinitely tastier. There are so many ways to use Tajín that you might not have even heard of, making it incredibly versatile. You can try it on everything from mangos and pineapples, to popcorn, nuts, and even your cream cheese bagel. So, it’s a no-brainer that you should add it to your roasted carrots too.

Tajín both seasons and brightens the roasted carrots with its combination of dried lime, salt, and ground red chilis. Plus, you don’t need to avoid it if you’re not able to tolerate too much spiciness, as it’s pretty mild and mostly just has a lot of flavor. All you have to do is rub some olive oil, or any vegetable oil, onto your carrots, and then give them a few shakes of Tajín and you’re ready to go. The best thing about Tajín is that you can cook with it or use it as a finishing spice. Either way will taste great.

Carrots are naturally sweet, so one way to boost their flavor is to inject something on the other side of the flavor spectrum. If you want to add a little bit of umami to give a sweet and savory effect, then miso is the perfect ingredient. Miso paste is salty and complex, and it gives a great depth of flavor to food. This fermented soybean paste even has hints of sweetness and smoke, so it’s an ingredient that gives your roasted carrots a well-rounded taste that hits all the right notes. If you’re still not convinced, you have to give it a go and see for yourself.

There are many ways to prepare a miso glaze, but one effective way is to mix the paste with some mirin, sugar, and oil. You can also add other flavorings like soy sauce, or even some sake to add a boozy twist to the glaze. Using a cooking brush, spread your glaze over your roasted carrots about ten minutes before they finish cooking. This way, your glaze will caramelize nicely without the risk of burning. Even so, it’s always good to keep an eye on your oven whenever you’re adding anything with sugar to a dish to ensure that it doesn’t burn.

Another savory sprinkle that will surprise you is shichimi togarashi. If you haven’t yet heard of it, this Japanese spice blend deserves a place in your kitchen. Similar to dukkah, shichimi togarashi adds not just seasoning, but also texture to your meal. Each blend might vary, but it usually includes dried ingredients like chilis, citrus peels, nori, sesame seeds, and Sichuan pepper. It adds a pleasant heat from the chili and Sichuan pepper, and a lot of interesting tastes thanks to the citrus and nori. The sesame seeds help bring everything together and give the spice blend a nice crunch.

With a sprinkle of shichimi togarashi, your roasted carrots will never be bland or boring again. Use it as a finishing sprinkle just as your carrots come out of the oven. You could attempt to make this spice blend yourself, but it’s a little complicated. Instead, you can find some at a Japanese specialty food store, or try this blend from House Foods.

One ingredient that so many people can’t do without is butter. It’s unbeatable for making food taste amazing, as it can make most things taste better than they would on their own. Butter is a great choice of fat for most roasted veggies, and it does wonders to roasted carrots. But why stop there? Butter on its own is great, but herb butter is your secret weapon for irresistible roasted carrots. A compound herb butter will take your carrots to new heights, and make you feel quite “cheffy”.

The best thing about herb butter is just how easy it is for something that sounds fancy.All it takes is you infusing some melted butter with some of your favorite dried or fresh herbs. You can then let your liquid butter cool and solidify, and use a little on anything you like. Many herbs will work well (in both fresh and dried form), including thyme, oregano, dill, mint, cilantro, parsley, and basil. If you’re using fresh herbs, make sure to chop them up or mince them so that they mix into your butter in a unified way, which allows each part of the butter to have a relatively even amount of herbs. Throw some of the butter in the pan with your roasted carrots while they’re hot, and taste the delectable dish you’ve created.

If you have a bit of a sweet tooth, nothing beats roasted carrots that have a hint of extra sweetness. Another easy classic for many households is maple-roasted carrots. Maple syrup adds just enough sweetness without being sickly sweet, and the maple flavor suits the caramelized carrots beautifully.

Using maple syrup on your carrots couldn’t be easier. You can season your carrots as you usually would, (some olive oil, salt, and pepper, are a good start) and then brush them with maple syrup near the end of cooking to avoid any burning. You can also make a little maple glaze with some butter or even mix your maple syrup with vinegar and soy sauce for a little bit of a different flavor profile. You can also look to Ina Garten for inspiration with her maple-roasted carrot salad recipe that is sure to be a hit at your next dinner party.

What you need to know about za’atar is that it may have become trendy, but it’s been an ordinary pantry staple in Levantine households forever. It’s a deliciously herby sprinkle that’s usually composed of things like sesame seeds, dried wild thyme, salt, and sumac. It’s nutty, fragrant, earthy, and sometimes a little tart due to the sumac. Traditionally it’s eaten with bread and olive oil, but it goes great on so many foods that it’s a waste to keep it for those purposes only. It breathes life into roasted carrots, and gives them an herbaceous elevation.

To incorporate za’atar into your roasted carrots recipe, you can mix it in with some olive oil and pour it over your carrots, or you can sprinkle it on when they’re done. You’ll want to add a little less salt if you’re gonna be adding za’atar, as it likely already has salt in it. As za’atar makes for a handy all-purpose seasoning, you can also mix it into some yogurt to make an herbed yogurt sauce for your carrots and get the best of both worlds with za’atar and yogurt sauce combined.

Many chili lovers probably already have their own stash of chili oil that they use on everything, but if this idea is new to you, you’re going to love what it brings to your roasted carrots. Chili oil is simply an oil that’s been infused with some chili. It may differ from cook to cook, but you can use anything from fresh chopped chilis, to dried chilis, to chili flakes, to Sichuan peppers. Basically any ingredient you like that has some heat can be infused into oil to be used as a condiment. You can also strain your oil after infusing it if you prefer a clear chili oil, or you can keep everything as-is for some interesting texture. 

Chili oil works great with roasted carrots as you can replace the oil you’d use for roasting them with chili oil instead. That way, your roasting fat will bring flavor and kick to your carrots while they cook. Of course, you can reinforce it by adding some more when they’re cooked. Chili oil also plays well with other flavors, so you can play around with different sweeteners, spices, herbs, or acids to make it even more interesting. How about trying this roasted carrot with chili oil and apricot jam recipe that’s sure to knock your socks off? If you don’t know where to start with chili oil, you could try a reliable pre-made staple and go with a jar of Lao Gan Ma’s Fried Chili in Oil.