Brussels sprouts are one of the best vegetable side dish options you have as a home cook, and all it takes is a quick roast. Long gone are the days when mushy Brussels sprouts were a standard punchline for unwanted food, as people have finally learned to trade the boiling that our parents and grandparents subjected them to for the dry heat of an oven. With just a little olive oil and salt, Brussels sprouts will deliver a green, earthy, pleasant flavor while taking almost no prep time, and they take well to lots of great, easy flavors like parmesan-crusted Brussels sprouts.
Sprouts can also easily be cut and thrown in the oven and forgotten while you focus on the main course, making them an ideal weeknight meal accompaniment. But while roasted Brussels sprouts are the way to go and not that tough, you still need to get the temperature balance right, and the sweet spot is roasting them at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for about half an hour.
Brussels sprouts’ thick, orb-like shape makes them a little tricky because the outside is going to cook a lot faster than the inside, even when cut in half. The best roasted Brussels sprouts have a textural contrast that is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside with a nice charred flavor from blackening on the edges. So you need a spot high enough to get you that crispy char and cook through the inside, and 425 degrees Fahrenheit is the perfect temperature to achieve that.
Roast Brussels sprouts at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for a perfect mix of crispy and tender
For Brussels sprouts, 425 degrees Fahrenheit also gives them an ideal amount of time in the oven. At that temperature, they should take between 25 and 30 minutes to get fully crisp and browned. That’s not too long to be a hassle but is long enough that you can work on prepping other things without worrying about them getting mushy or burning. If you want them a little faster, you can cook Brussels sprouts at 475 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. And if you get to the end of your cook time and they are quite browned or crispy enough, just throw them under a high broiler for an extra minute or two.
You’ll also want to follow a few more tips for roasting Brussels sprouts to make sure they turn out perfect at these temperatures. First, make sure the sprouts are in an even, flat layer and aren’t too crowded so that there is space for air to flow around each sprout and fully crisp them. You also don’t want to fuss with them too much once in the oven. Keep them cut side down and just let them roast without flipping them, as the steady contact with the pan will promote the best browning. At most, you should toss them once near the end, and that’s it! With the right temperature, Brussels sprouts recipes are simple all-stars that will pair with almost any dinner.
