The Absolute Best Sugar To Add To Your Baby Carrots Glaze

Glazed baby carrots are a hit at many dinner tables, especially around the holidays, and they offer a great way to serve veggies with a sweet kick that even picky kids will enjoy. While carrots are the main ingredient of this dish, the type of sugar used in your glaze is just as important.

The most common sugar to use when glazing baby carrots is brown sugar, but you have to consider the type. Although light and dark brown sugar are interchangeable in most cases, they do have different flavor profiles. This stems from the addition of molasses, with dark brown sugar containing almost double the amount of light brown sugar, providing a bolder flavor.

Because of this, dark brown sugar is the absolute best to use as a glaze for baby carrots if you want a richer flavor with more toffee undertones, while light brown or golden brown sugar is best for a subtle sweetness that isn't overpowering. That said, if all you have is light brown sugar and you want a little more oomph, you can also add additional molasses to make it dark.

If you're making glazed carrots and don't have dark brown sugar, you're not out of luck as long as you have molasses. Transforming light brown sugar into the dark variety only requires adding a tablespoon of molasses to a cup of light brown sugar. You can always add an extra tablespoon if you want after a taste test. Alternatively, you can make your own brown sugar by adding the same amount of molasses to plain white sugar. While brown sugar can be substituted with white sugar in a pinch, the consistency of your glaze will be different.

Keep in mind that you should only use light or dark molasses, not blackstrap when adding to light brown sugar or making your own. Blackstrap molasses is incredibly thick and bitter and should only be used in recipes that explicitly call for it. Additionally, you can swap molasses for maple syrup if you don't have any on hand, though the flavor won't be as robust.