Ditch Your Skillet And Turn To Your Oven For Convenient Glazed Carrots

Glazed carrots may just be the closest we'll ever get to eating literal candy for dinner. Sticky, tender, and sweet with just the barest hint of earthiness, they're a beautiful side to serve alongside classic roasted whole chicken, mashed potatoes, grilled fish, or a lemony kale salad. Even with its sweet alure, glazed carrots are kind of a hassle to make. After peeling and slicing into coins, most recipes call for the carrots to be boiled in water while the classic brown sugar glaze comes together in a separate pan.

Not only are there a lot of moving parts for a side dish, but it can also be tricky to monitor the texture of your carrots while preventing your glaze from scorching (and potentially ruining your pan). Additionally, most boiled root veggies can go from perfectly tender to mushy in a snap, and carrots are no exception. Roasting them in the oven not only eliminates a lot of guesswork, it frees you up to make sure your restaurant-style ribeye steak or marinated pork chops receive the attention they need.

Oven-roasted glazed carrots also take a lot less time to prep and cook. Instead of cutting them into coins, you can simply slice them into sticks (the same method you'd use for crisp-tender oven-baked carrot fries) and bake them in the glaze until they're caramelized on the outside and velvety on the inside. At the proper temperature of about 425 degrees Fahrenheit, this should take between 25 and 30 minutes.

One of the best ways to ensure your oven-roasted glazed carrots turn out perfect every time is to prep them properly. In addition to saving time, slicing them into sticks instead of coins helps protect their texture and prevents them from drying out or scorching around the edges (as thinner coins might). Thicker sticks also absorb flavors more easily, meaning you're more likely to get a sticky, caramelized glaze instead of carrot slices floating in a pool of sugary butter.

The oven's high temperature also ensures delicious results by quickly cooking the carrots to the right texture while simultaneously reducing the glaze, so it adheres easily to the veggies. Roasting them longer at a lower temperature actually increases the risk that the sugars will burn, so if you like your carrots extra glossy, we recommend reserving a little of your glaze to drizzle over them when they're hot out of the oven. However, you may want to reduce the reserved glaze a little on the stovetop to marry the flavors — you don't want your side dish to taste like raw sugar.

Once you have your method down, feel free to experiment with a variety of sweet ingredients and seasonings. Brown sugar and butter are traditional, but you can swap in maple syrup and cinnamon for an autumnal dish, or garlicky honey for a springtime side. Meanwhile, hot honey and cayenne would be particularly delicious with fish or served alongside a fruity salad.