Fresh Ideas for Carrot Recipes

Bright blue skies, cool mornings, no more mosquitoes… summer is coming to a close. It’s not quite fall yet; the leaves have just started to turn yellow, and I’m still waiting on the first frost to pick cranberries. This is the season of abundance from the garden. Here’s a selection of carrot recipes to give you some fresh ideas for using produce!

Of course there are plenty of earlier crops, and some will come later, but just now I am so thankful that my kitchen runneth over with a plenitude of tomatoes, peppers, green beans, beets, carrots, and the occasional squash from a friend’s garden.

The moose ate all of our broccoli this year, and most of the lettuce, but we still have quite a colorful harvest.

I love it when I don’t even have to think about buying vegetables at the grocery store–and the home grown ones always taste so much fresher! There’s not much better than just-picked produce that you grew yourself.

My toddler was helping me pick carrots this morning, and it was a job to convince him that we needed to wash the funny three-legged carrot before he could eat it! Our carrots aren’t huge, but most of them are 5-6 inches long and very tasty.

I won’t be surprised if we end up eating most of them fresh, but for those of you with larger carrot patches (or who don’t enjoy fresh carrots), here’s some inspiration for carrot recipes:

Carrot Recipes

Soup

Autumn is the perfect time to make a big pot of soup, as the days start to get a little chilly and there are lots of vegetables ripening.

Vegetable soup, with or without meat, is simple to prepare and also freezes very well. This makes it doubly beneficial for me: I’m preserving vegetables (without spending all day blanching or canning) and putting meals in the freezer at the same time!

Of course there’s also cream of carrot soup if you need to use up more carrots. I am very fond of carrot soup, but don’t try to freeze this one! Cream-based soups do not tolerate freezing.

Spiced Carrots

Carrots are one of those funny vegetables that tastes equally good with savory or sweet flavors. When we were growing up, Mom would often add butter, cinnamon, and a bit of brown sugar to a pot of carrots as soon as they were crisp-tender and drained.

Another good combination is orange juice, orange peel, and ground ginger, along with a pat of butter. Use about 1/2 teaspoon of ground spices per 10 medium size carrots, and a tablespoon or two of butter and orange juice.

Minted Carrots

This is one of my favorite carrot recipes. I’m always looking for ways to use fresh mint, and it makes a nice accent to the carrots. I like to use apple mint, since the flavor is milder than spearmint or peppermint.

I combined orange juice, orange peel, and a pat of butter with cooked carrots, then stirred in about a tablespoon of chopped apple mint just before serving. This was only for 3 servings of carrots, so feel free to use more mint if you’re making a big pot!

Roasted Carrots

Roasting lends itself well to many root vegetables. The long cooking time bring out the flavors and the sugars in carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, parsnips, onions, and more.

Try tossing large chunks of vegetables with olive oil, sea salt, and herbs. Rosemary, savory, and thyme are all good options. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes, or until tender.

Another variation is to roast at a higher temperature for a shorter time. This results in a crisper texture and possibly charred edges. You do have to keep an eye on them!

Make sure the carrots and any other vegetables are in smallish pieces so they will actually cook through. Toss with olive oil and seasonings, and make sure you only have a single layer of vegetables in your pan.

Bake at 425 degrees for 30-45 minutes, but DO start checking on them after half an hour!

Carrot Chips

While these involve the same cooking technique as roasting, the end result is so different that I think they deserve their own category.

The basic concept is just like potato chips: you want to slice carrots as thinly as possible, coat them with oil, add salt and seasonings if you wish, then roast at a high temperature for a short time.

Ideally, you want to use large carrots for this recipe, and cut them on the diagonal for maximum surface area. It’s probably not worth the time to cut up small carrots (or even the narrow ends of large ones).

If you would like an actual recipe to follow, check out this one from Mother Would Know. She lists different oven temperatures and cooking times, so you don’t have to guess!

What are your favorite carrot recipes?

Well, there you have it: five different carrot recipes. From creamy soups to crispy chips, in a main dish or starring on their own, carrots are a great way to work some vitamin A into your meals. Do you have a favorite carrot recipe that doesn’t appear here? Let me know!

For more ways to use your garden-fresh produce, check out this post on how to dry tomatoes in the oven.

Jump to Recipe

I’ve been trying to stock my freezer lately, in preparation for the arrival of a new baby—and an extended period of time during which I won’t want to cook. Granted, I’m not particularly excited about extra cooking now, when it’s hot outside, and I have a baby heating me up from the inside, and a propane oven that raises the temperature in our small cabin pretty quickly… But there were bananas looking lonely in the freezer, and I thought how nice it would be to have some banana bread on hand for breakfasts. So out they came and I dug out my mom’s best banana nut bread recipe.

My mother’s banana nut bread recipe is hands-down the BEST I’ve tasted. It has better flavor and texture than so many others, and rises nicely to make a large, domed loaf.  Not to mention it also freezes well. You can make it with or without nuts, and I like to pretty it up for Christmas or Valentine’s Day by adding chocolate chips and maraschino cherries. If you’re trying to limit sugar, here’s a link to a lower-sugar variation that my sister developed and her family loves. It’s also dairy-free!

I grew up eating slices of this bread spread thinly with butter, which my husband finds appalling. It is equally tasty plain or with peanut butter. In fact, I commonly make banana bread and peanut butter sandwiches to take along when we’re traveling, because they tend to be less messy than regular PB&J sandwiches.

THE SECRET IS IN THE BANANAS:

You don’t want to use perfectly yellow bananas with no brown spots when making banana bread. As they ripen, the flavor of bananas becomes more developed and the starches convert into sugars. That said, I like to use bananas that are a bit past their peak, let them sit on the counter for a few more days so they have lots of brown spots, and then pop them in the freezer until I have enough time and bananas to make bread. I definitely recommend freezing your bananas first, because then when you thaw them, they’re already mushy, and you don’t end up with chunks of banana in your bread. Ideally, you want the texture to be consistent throughout your bread (except for nuts/add-ins). If you do decide to refrigerate or freeze your bananas, the skins will turn dark brown. Don’t be alarmed! This is normal, and the fruit inside tastes just fine.

NOTE: If you let bananas sit out at room temperature too long, they will start to rot, and both the banana and its skin will turn dark and mushy. Do not use rotten fruit!

A word about milk

One other tip for the best banana nut bread recipe is the sour milk. Cultured buttermilk works just as well. This brings out the sweetness and overall flavor of the bananas, while improving the texture of the bread. It’s easy to sour your milk by adding just a touch of vinegar to it, and letting the mixture sit for a few minutes so it will curdle. I use white vinegar in this recipe, because I don’t want to add any other flavors. Lemon juice would probably work as well, but you might have to use a larger amount in order to curdle the milk.

When baking this bread, don’t be alarmed if it gets pretty dark on top.  The color should be a nice glossy brown when it’s done. This is due to caramelization of the sugars in the bananas themselves, because we used such ripe fruit. To determine doneness, stick a toothpick in the center. If it comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs, the bread is done. You can also check by pressing lightly on top of the loaf with your finger. It should spring back, not sink.

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