In the search for a varied and healthy menu, many people ignore simple, but very important for health vegetables, such as carrots. But you can cook a lot of goodies out of it, without fear of spoiling the figure with extra calories. This article will tell you how to use this vegetable not in salad or in soup, but in the oven. How to bake carrots, what options may be among budget recipes, as well as how to make the dish more attractive.
What can be cooked from carrots in the oven
For many people, this vegetable is associated only with salad or vegetable stew, less often with carrot cutlets. To bake carrots in the oven, as is usually done with potatoes, not all housewives guess. If you carefully study the cookbooks of many countries, you can find that almost all the cuisines of the world that use carrots in their dishes, prepare from it a variety of goodies, even in the oven.
Here are some healthy vegetable dishes:
- Oven baked carrots with herbs and other vegetables. Often in this recipe, honey or sugar syrup is used. This side dish is ideal for dishes of meat, fish, and is also very useful for digestion.
- Carrot casserole (sometimes in combination with other vegetables, cheese or cottage cheese, meat products). Often, cream, eggs and a mixture of flavoring seasonings are additionally used.
- Carrot cake with butter and even chocolate cream is very common in Europe. It has a pleasant orange tint and a unique taste, although it is impossible to determine that this is really an ordinary carrot.
Filled rolls, pies, kulebyaki and much more is also prepared from carrots. It takes only a little patience and a good proven recipe.
How to just bake carrots in the oven
Vegetables cooked in the oven with spices and herbs, and sometimes with sauce, are a good side dish for the main course, and can also be an easy dinner for those who follow a diet. Small-sized carrots baked whole look very nice. The required proportions of ingredients for one kilogram of vegetable:
- Two tbsp. tablespoons of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
- 1 tsp. Himalayan salt and Provencal (Italian) herbs. This mix of dried spices can be bought at any grocery store.
- a small bunch of parsley;
- 1 \ 4 tsp allspice.
Preparing such carrots in the oven is very simple. Dry the cleaned and washed root crops (no more than 8 cm long and no more than 3 cm in diameter) with a paper towel, removing water. Mix all the ingredients for the marinade in one bowl until the grains of salt are completely dissolved.
Cover the baking tray with foil, creating small sides (so that the marinade does not leak). Put vegetables there. Pour the marinade. Cover with a sheet of foil. Place in an oven with a temperature of 200 degrees and bake for twenty minutes. Then turn over each carrot, sprinkle with chopped parsley and continue baking for another 10 minutes. Then turn off the oven, open the oven door. The carrots in the foil are still warm, but in the cold they also have a very attractive taste.
Casserole for children
Children do not like cottage cheese and carrots most of all and go to different tricks, if only they are not to eat. But resourceful mothers, who know how important these products are for the health of the child, came up with a very interesting recipe for carrot casseroles with cottage cheese.
In the oven, during the heat treatment process, these two incompatible ingredients turn into a gourmet casserole that tastes good, which the children enjoy eating. It is especially good if served with berry syrup or honey. For the preparation of cottage cheese casseroles with carrots in the oven according to the recipe, you will need such products:
- Three hundred grams of cottage cheese.
- Two medium-sized carrots.
- Three eggs.
- Two tbsp. l butter and as much potato starch.
- Vanilla on the tip of a knife;
- A pinch of salt.
Step cooking
First of all, the vegetable should be peeled and grated. Raw carrots are usually used, but there are similar recipes in which you can take boiled. Mix grated carrots with cottage cheese, butter and salt, add vanilla and eggs slightly beaten with a fork. Add starch at the end and mix the dough thoroughly.
Lubricate the silicone baking dish with butter and put the carrot preparation there, place in the oven, turn on the temperature by 200 degrees and bake for forty minutes. Given that there was no sugar in the dough, and for some sweet carrots it is not enough, it is better to serve a similar casserole with honey, sweet syrup or jam. Optionally, add a little raisins to the dough.
Vegetable roses with cheese
One of the universal products that can turn a simple dish into a gourmet's dream is hard cheese. With it, you can cook a delicious carrot casserole in the oven, adding to it the vegetables available in the refrigerator. For the dish you will need:
- Three hundred grams of medium-sized carrots, small zucchini and eggplant.
- 1.5 cups of grated Parmesan, can be mixed with another cheese.
- 1 tsp allspice (black).
- 2-3 tbsp. l sour cream or mayonnaise.
- Salt according to taste preferences.
- A small bunch of parsley.
This dish can be prepared from the above set of vegetables, but it is not forbidden to take others. For example, zucchini can be replaced with bell pepper or broccoli inflorescences.
How to cook
First of all, you need to cut vegetables into plates with a thickness of not more than 0.3 mm. It is very convenient to use a vegetable cutter for this. Next, take round molds for baking cupcakes or cupcakes, generously grease them with vegetable oil. Alternating different vegetable slices, roll them into a spiral (roll) directly in the form, forming a semblance of a rose.
Too tightly the plates do not need to be pressed against each other - a small space should remain between them. Mix grated cheese with pepper and salt, add sour cream and mix thoroughly with a spoon. Spread the resulting mass on each "rose", carefully spreading with a spoon on the surface. Place the baking tray with carrots in the oven, heated to a temperature of 220 degrees and bake for 20 -25 minutes. If the surface of the mini-casseroles turns red too fast, you can reduce the temperature to 200 degrees. Before serving, sprinkle the finished dish with finely chopped parsley.
Carrot cake
Using this scheme, you can cook a delicious carrot cake. The simplest recipe offered to your attention above is easily complicated by larger vegetables. Zucchini, eggplant and carrots (each about 15-20 centimeters in size) are cut into slices, which are laid out in the form of a spiral in the form, starting from its sides and ending with the center.
Slices of sweet pepper, pumpkin, potatoes, even layers of onions can be used. We must not forget that all slices should not be laid out too tightly so that between them there remain 2 -3 mm for cheese filling. If it seems too thick and does not fit well into the space between the layers of vegetables, it can be diluted with whipped eggs (2-3 pcs.) Or a large amount of sour cream. Carrot cake is baked longer (about 40-50 minutes) at the same temperature.
Vegetable casserole with potatoes and broccoli
We offer another recipe for vegetables in the oven: potatoes with carrots and broccoli. This food is recommended by nutritionists as a low-calorie dish, since a portion of such a casserole (100 g) rarely exceeds 150 calories. For cooking, use this set of products:
- 150-200 grams of carrots, potatoes and broccoli inflorescences. You can also use cauliflower or Brussels sprouts.
- 4 eggs.
- 100 grams of sour cream (can be replaced with mayonnaise).
- 200 grams of hard cheese.
- 1 \ 4 tsp ground coriander and as much black pepper.
- A pinch of seasoning.
- Salt to taste.
It is worth noting that the proportions of vegetables can vary depending on the availability of products and tastes. You can add your own options, but do not forget that carrots are the main ingredient here.
Cook together
Vegetables in this recipe undergo initial heat treatment before baking: cut carrots into circles with a thickness of 0.5 cm, potatoes into cubes, and divide the broccoli into small inflorescences. Boil the potatoes until half cooked, and blanch the carrots and cabbage in boiling water for 5 to 8 minutes. Next, to cook carrots in the oven with vegetables, you need to beat eggs with spices and salt with a fork, add sour cream and grated cheese (1 \ 2 of the norm). To prepare this casserole, you can use a regular baking sheet or a wide baking dish (more convenient - square).
Grease it with vegetable oil. All previously prepared vegetables should be moved into a mold and mixed a little, so that they are evenly distributed, evened out and gently pressed with your hands, but not tamped. Pour the contents of the baking sheet with the cream-cheese mixture and place it in the oven. Set the temperature to 240 degrees and wait thirty minutes. Next, sprinkle the vegetables on top with the remains of grated cheese and continue to bake, lowering the temperature to 200 degrees. When the top of the casserole acquires a golden and golden crust, it can be considered ready.
Serve carrot casserole with vegetables still warm. If you wish, you can eat it with hot sauces: mayonnaise with garlic, ketchup or adjika. Potatoes for this dish can be pre-boiled "in uniform." Broccoli can be replaced with zucchini.