rooting for root vegetables

January 14, 2024 7:26 AM

What are your favorite root vegetable recipes? I'm especially interested in less common/less celebrated winter root vegetables, like turnips, parsnips, rutabaga, winter radishes, beets, etc.

Recipes, links, cookbooks, general ideas all welcome. Don't worry about dietary restrictions; I'll adapt as needed.

Potatoes/sweet potatoes/carrots are pretty well covered in my repertoire but if you have the absolute perfect recipe for one those, feel free to share. And if they're mixed with other root vegetables, even better.

posted by carrioncomfort to Food & Drink (31 answers total)

I love this soup.

Rutabaga Soup

You can substitute water or vegetable stock for the chicken stock if you want to make this soup vegetarian.

1 stick (1/4 pound) butter
1 cup onion, roughly chopped
1 cup Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
1 cup rutabaga, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup butternut squash, peeled, seeded and roughly chopped
1 cup carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup sweet potato, peeled and roughly chopped
1 quart good chicken stock
2 cups heavy cream
¼ cup maple syrup
Salt and cayenne pepper to taste

1. In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Add the onion, apple, rutabaga, squash, carrots, and sweet potato and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent.

2. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 to 25 minutes or until all of the vegetables are cooked through and tender.

3. Purée the vegetables in a blender or food processor. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into the same pot you used to cook the vegetables. Add the cream, maple syrup, salt and cayenne pepper.

4. Return the pot to the stove, bring the soup to a simmer, and serve.
posted by Dolley at 7:40 AM on January 14, 2024 [2 favorites]

Beet tartare. So delicious.
posted by CheeseLouise at 7:43 AM on January 14, 2024 [4 favorites]

I take all the veg you're talking about, and onions/garlic, cut to similar bite size pieces, toss w oil, salt pepper and oven roast LOW and slow. Like 250 for
a few hours.
Serve over rice/quinoa of your choosing. Even better as leftovers.
posted by atomicstone at 7:47 AM on January 14, 2024 [8 favorites]

I love eating turnips raw. Especially young turnips. They are great sliced into thin wedges, like apple wedges, and with a little bit of olive oil or salt on them. Or even just without any garnishes.
posted by virve at 7:50 AM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

Parsnip soup.

Peel, chop and boil some parsnips in vegetable or chicken broth.
If you have some onion on hand add a small onion as well.
Blend until smooth.
Season with pepper and hot curry powder. You probably don’t need salt due to the broth. If you use water to boil you’ll need salt.

Finish with a bit of cream.

The soup does not have a curry flavour as such. But between the earthy sweetness of the parsnips and the heat and wider flavour components of the curry powder this makes an amazing, luxurious soup. Serve with some nice bread or else toasted cheese sandwiches.
posted by koahiatamadl at 8:05 AM on January 14, 2024 [5 favorites]

Simple pickled beets, with a dash of hot pepper flakes in the vinegar and sugar solution. Eaten cold.
posted by Czjewel at 8:47 AM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

For a a little variation on roasting hotter (375F), brush with Mayo, mix in a little powdered onion or garlic if that sounds good. It clings well and creates sort of an air-fry effect, even moreso if you have a convection setting.

Everything listed except beets also is great in a Japanese curry, just buy a box of roux at your local Asian market and vaguely follow the instructions.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:48 AM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

I just posted a link for Korean beef and radish soup to another question, but it is surprisingly delicious for such a simple thing.

I'm also a fan of beets and like pickled beets, classic Harvard beets, and either regular or pickled canned beets dressed up with a little sour cream and mustard....oops, I think I offered these ideas in response to your question about canned food! Just goes to show how much I love a simple canned beet recipe.
posted by drlith at 8:49 AM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

Jicamas! Recipe: cut them up and eat them like carrot sticks. Delicious.
posted by ropeladder at 9:59 AM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

Picked Watermelon Radish!
posted by damayanti at 10:04 AM on January 14, 2024 [2 favorites]

I absolutely love a good celeriac. They're huge and look horrifying so you can generally pick them up cheap.

-- when calculating size, you will lose a bit more from the root end (cthulhu tentacles) than you think. No matter how much you wash it, there will be dirt and grit up in the roots. Once you've cut the roots off, rinse the end.

-- don't bother taking the peeler to its vast hide. Just hew thin slices off the surface with your big chef's knife till the peel is gone.

-- Then cut up the resulting rough spheroid into whatever size pieces you want.

You can use it in most situations where you'd use potatoes (roasted, mashed, gratin). It is really nice in soup. If it's a puréed soup, the celeriac will make it creamy.

Also: they're hard to get outside the US/Canada, but I really miss Jerusalem artichokes ("sunchokes".) They're not artichokes and not from Jerusalem: they're American, a sort of sunflower, and over time Italian "girasole" was corrupted to "Jerusalem". Anyway, they are SUPER tasty when roasted.
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:29 AM on January 14, 2024 [7 favorites]

Jerusalem artichokes/sunchokes, don't need to peel, scrub a bit, slice 1/4" , toss with oil (peanut oil is especially good) salt and pepper, roast 400F about 20 mins, flip and roast again until you see some crispy edges, the interiors will get soft. They will look like sad potatoes, but they have a rich nutty taste. I made a dip of mayo and roasted pepper spread from a jar, and chopped italian parsley. Lovely.
posted by winesong at 10:36 AM on January 14, 2024 [3 favorites]

This roasted root vegetables over spiced lentils and greens recipe is delicious—I’ve made it many times.
posted by sugarbomb at 11:58 AM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

Miso soup :)
posted by eyeball at 1:28 PM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

I roast root veg almost every week—my favorites are carrots, parsnips, and rutabagas. Cut 'em into even-size chunks, drizzle with oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast at 425° or so for about 45 minutes, tossing once halfway through.

Melissa Clark has a terrific recipe for root veg soup. I like to make it with 1 pound of carrots, 1 pound of parsnips, and 1½ pounds of celery root.
posted by wisekaren at 1:28 PM on January 14, 2024 [2 favorites]

I like to make a vegan cottage pie using the more flavorful and crunchy celeriac, parsnips, and turnips in the filling, and mashed potatoes on top. Good winter comfort food.
posted by agentofselection at 2:21 PM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

I make a very simple soup by chopping up a mixture of any sort of root veg I like (usually carrots parsnip and Swede (rutabaga)) , stewing them gently in a good chicken or vegetable stock until soft then whizzing them up with a stick blender and adding a small carton of creme fraiche or heavy cream and seasoning to taste.
posted by Fuchsoid at 3:01 PM on January 14, 2024 [2 favorites]

Golden beets & beet greens: I don’t have a formal recipe for this, but get some golden beets with the greens. Slice the beets thinly and sauté in oil with salt and pepper. When they’re just about done (tender and tasty), add the greens to the side of the pan to quickly cook and reduce. Then you get two veggies in one. I love this.
posted by bluedaisy at 3:35 PM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

Yotam Ottolenghi is my go to cookbook author for these kinds of things, and lots of his recipes are online. They are reliably tasty even though I often simplify them a lot.
posted by sepviva at 3:45 PM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

Once I made this turnip puff recipe and loved it! Rutabagas should work too.
posted by beyond_pink at 4:44 PM on January 14, 2024 [2 favorites]

Oven-roasted beets, carrots, parsnips, and new potatoes with aioli is a favorite cold-weather dish of mine. I usually pair it with some kind of green -- often sauteed spinach or chard with pine nuts.
posted by zombiedance at 7:50 PM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

Here's an entire book. So far I've only had occasion to make things involving sweet potatoes and beets and carrots, but it's got a crapton of recipes for root vegetables - some also involving meat, some not.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:18 PM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

Kanji has a template to make creamy soup from root vegetables.
posted by mmascolino at 8:48 PM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]

Here's your Sunday night dinner: Roasted Chicken with Root Veggies.

--Take a whole chicken and butterfly it (or ask the butcher to do this). The bird should lay flat (this ensures it cooks quickly and evenly.)

--The day before cooking, salt the chicken: separate the skin from the bird and put 1/2 tsp salt in each leg/thigh and breast (between skin and meat), plus 1 tsp on the cavity. (3 tsp altogether). You can add a poultry seasoning to this for extra flavor.

--Put the chicken on a cooling rack or something that will give air circulation around it, place that over a sheetpan, and refrigerate, uncovered, for 8-24 hours.

--When ready to cook, set your oven to 400 degrees. Remove the chicken from the fridge, brush the skin with olive oil and salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning.

--Now, get yourself a 9x13 pan with some sides to it. If it's metal and stuff sticks, go ahead and lightly grease it. Huck in all the roasted veggies you want (rutabaga, carrots, potato, turnip, etc.). Add some brussels sprouts too if you like. Give them a light seasoning and toss around. Then spread them out evenly in the pan.

--Set the chicken over top of the 9x13 (either on the rack, or you can set it directly on the veg if you want).

--Roast at 400 for about 50-55 minutes, stirring the veggies halfway through.

The drippings (schmaltz) from the chicken will ooze onto the veggies and give them so much flavor and deliciousness.
posted by hydra77 at 7:01 AM on January 15, 2024 [2 favorites]

Others have mentioned beet greens as ingredients in recipes. Don't forget that they are also delicious on their own! Very lightly sautéed beet greens with salt, pepper, and a dash of cider vinegar is one of my absolute favorite dishes (and it works well with any winter root vegetable greens, to your own taste).
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 7:46 AM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]

Rutabaga! Peel, cut into fry-shape, toss w oil of choice and spices of choice. Bake high (450? And watch!) 15min a side?
Maybe sprinkle with parm? Sooo good and super low carbs, especially compared to potatoes. I ate daily when I had gestational diabetes. Feels very indulgent.
posted by atomicstone at 8:59 AM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]

So much good stuff here!
I like parsnip roasted with chilli and maple or honey and rose harissa.

And kohlrabi and apple sliced as a carpaccio with lemon infused oil and balsamic, fiddly but beautiful summer starter, especially with peas shoot greens
Celeriac and mustard mash
And a shout out for the humble mashed turnip / bashit neep
posted by tardigrade at 10:33 AM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]

A long-standing family favourite is kohlrabi, peeled and sliced into thin rectangles, served raw like sashimi with garnishes and dipping sauces like soy or ponzu and some wasabi. You can of course also make kohlrabi sushi.

Bake red beets in the oven till they are wrinkly and a sharp knife goes easily through them. Let them rest till they are cool enough to touch. Peel them, and cut into 1X1 cm dice. Make a marinade with olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic, salt, pepper, a dash of balsamic vinegar, and marinate the beet cubes for a while. Serve dressed with capers and topped with a lot of dill. You can put a couple of hard boiled eggs and/or anchovies on top, too, if you eat animal protein.

My favorite project food is an insane borscht recipe, which should be served as a starter, in smallish bowls, because it is very, very intense. If you cool it down, the broth becomes a beautiful ruby-colored jelly, with which you can make little aspic thingies in fancy shapes.

If you are a meat eating person, making a borscht based on several different meats is amazing, you don't have to go all the Carême way.

Google Ottolenghi and celeriac, and there will be treasures. And make celeriac remoulade all winter. I also like to mix a bit of boiled celeriac into my mashed potatoes.

Another vote for the Jerusalem artichokes, though I feel a bit about them like I feel about quiche, croissants and Napa cabbage. At some point during my sensitive developing years, we just had too many of those things and now I only very rarely eat them. But they are truly good.

This time of year, your minestrone should be full of root vegetables, diced into spoonable pieces and cooked till ready to eat. Add in some frozen peas at the same time you add the pasta, for a bit of contrast. That was what I'd planned for today, based on the contents of our fridge, but then I discovered a pizza dough that needed eating.

If you have duck fat and an overstuffed crisper drawer: cut all of your root veg except the red beets, but including potatoes and carrots into 8X8 mm dice. Cook them at medium heat in the duck fat till tender, but still with a bit of chew. Serve with a fried egg, ketchup, Worchestershire sauce (or brown sauce) and marinated red onions. And that red beet salad. It works just fine with olive oil, too.

Seven vegetable couscous is another classic that we had for big dinners in our house for ages. And still a family favourite, none of the quiche curse here.
posted by mumimor at 10:41 AM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]

I forgot two things: the root veg hash needs onions. And you can make the seven vegetables couscous without meat.
posted by mumimor at 11:42 AM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]

For beets, a beet terrine like this one: https://more.ctv.ca/food/recipes/beet-terrine.html. The key is that it has balsamic glaze and basil. I was highly skeptical of basil with beets, but it's lovely. Also, there's no reason you can't just assemble it as a salad instead of the shaped version.

I would skip the tarragon in this version personally, but sweet potato (we use yam) and turnip gratin is served at Christmas and it's divine.
posted by kitcat at 1:42 PM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]

My fave was accidental and very simple to make. My air fryer came with a book o’ recipes including one for Root Vegetable Medley, which comprised basically carrots, potatoes, turnips and parsnips. I decided to make it one day, as I thought we had all four in the fridge.

I cleaned and diced the potatoes and carrots, but then found that the parsnips were looking a little mealy and my wife had used the turnip in making a soup a few days earlier. So I proceeded with just the two things I had, which resulted in essentially home fries with carrots: surprisingly good.

In more deliberate meals, I have always found that sliced potatoes and carrots and onions cooked in a casserole dish with butter and a bit of salt and pepper is delicious.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:26 AM on January 18, 2024 [1 favorite]