Eat a Little Better

YOU NEED DINNER. You have vegetables in the fridge. You’re not sure what to do with them. My solution is almost always the same: Roast them. Coated in a slick of oil, hit with a generous sprinkle of salt, and cooked in a hot oven, virtually any vegetable transforms from mild-mannered to thrilling. Roasting intensifies flavor and reveals sides of even familiar vegetables that you didn’t realize existed. Take broccoli. Raw, it’s pleasant, slightly bitter, and crunchy. Steamed, it’s the butt of jokes, at least until butter gets involved. But after you pull a tray of caramelized florets from the oven, the stalks sweet with a soft crunch and the buds salty and crispy, I guarantee no one will be laughing—they’ll be too busy eating.

We all know carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts taste great roasted, but there’s no need to stop at the usual suspects. You can roast radishes and cabbage, green beans and sugar snap peas, whole scallions, pods of okra, and leaves of kale. While the oven does the work for you, you’re free to sauté shrimp, sear pork chops, or put away laundry.

I love eating roasted vegetables with nothing more than salt and lemon. Yet when I’m having friends over, or if the other components of my meal are dead-simple, I like to raise the bar on plain roasted greatness. Turn the page and you’ll find recipes for combinations I look to again and again to take vegetables in exciting directions without straying from weeknight-dinner territory.

But while recipes are great, especially when you’re unfamiliar with a particular vegetable or technique, it’s even better to have a basic technique locked down, with a few go-to bells and whistles. With that in mind, here is my basic blueprint for roasting. See this page for a handful of ideas for ways to upgrade virtually anything you pull from the oven (or grill, for that matter).

THE BLUEPRINT

ROASTING VEGETABLES

Crank up your oven. I like to roast hot, anywhere from 450°F to 500°F, so the vegetables cook quickly but have a chance to develop those beautiful caramelized edges before the rest of them is too soft.
Cut the vegetables into pieces that are more or less equal in size and shape, so they finish cooking at the same time. Small pieces cook more quickly but don’t always have enough time to get good and brown before they’re overcooked. So I tend to use pieces on the larger side—broccoli and cauliflower in big florets, fat carrots cut in half lengthwise, and green beans whole. Oh, and once you’ve washed those vegetables, drain and dry them well. Otherwise, you’ll be sacrificing the dry heat that makes roasted vegetables so awesome.
Don’t worry about how much you’ve got. There’s no need to measure by weight or in cups. As long as you can spread the vegetables in a single layer on a baking sheet with a little space between each piece, you’re good. Otherwise, they’ll steam, not roast. If they don’t fit comfortably on one baking sheet, divide the mixture between two. I like to line the baking sheet with parchment paper (not foil, which can create off-flavors) to prevent sticking and make clean-up easy.
Put the pieces in a bowl and drizzle on olive oil or an oil with a neutral flavor, like grapeseed or canola. Toss with your hands, rubbing the oil onto the vegetables and adding more if necessary. You want to add enough that they’re well coated but not so much that pools of oil form at the bottom of the bowl. Next, add salt, tossing as you do so the vegetables get an even, generous sprinkling.
Spread the vegetables on a baking sheet or other large pan so that they lie flat in one layer. Roast until the bottoms are deep golden brown (start checking after 10 minutes or so), then flip or toss the vegetables so that most of that color is facing up. Keep roasting until the vegetables are as tender as you like them. I almost always flash them under the broiler after I flip them to get great color before they overcook, but doneness is a matter of preference. Taste them often: Maybe your vegetables are done when you flip them—I like a little crunch myself. If they’re too firm for you, just give them a little more time in the oven.
DOUBLE UP: Buy a second baking sheet. That way, with just another minute or two of prep, you’ll end up with twice what you need for dinner—and plenty of no-effort awesomeness for the days to come.

Kale rarely sees the inside of the oven, and that’s too bad. Roasting the leafy green gives it an awesome texture somewhere between tender sautéed kale and crispy kale chips. Tomatoes add little bursts of excitement, the heat concentrating their flavor so even lackluster specimens come out jammy and sweet.

1 pound kale, such as lacinato (Tuscan), curly, or Russian, bottom inch of stems trimmed, leaves cut or torn into bite-sized pieces

Mild-mannered and crunchy when raw, cabbage transforms in the oven, growing sweeter by the second. I roast it in thick slices, the outer layer getting deeply brown and potato-chip crispy while the meaty core turns juicy. Spicy aïoli, aka garlicky mayo spiked with Sriracha, takes it to the next level. It’s impress-your-friends stuff, though there’s no shame in substituting a cup of store-bought mayo mixed with a grated clove of garlic, the juice of half a lemon, and a tablespoon or so of your favorite hot sauce.

One 2-pound head of green cabbage, bottom trimmed, outer leaves removed, sliced into ¾-inch-thick slabs

The jury’s still out on steamed broccoli, but roast it and everyone’s on board. High, dry heat makes it extra sweet and adds an extra dimension of texture: The florets get tender but stay snappy, and the buds turn brown and crispy. Salty capers and shaved Parmesan make each bite even better. To up your game, add the lemons to the bowl with the broccoli and oil and roast the citrus cut side down, directly on the baking sheet. That way, their tartness becomes way less harsh and much more interesting. Don’t sleep on broccoli’s thick stalks—they’re super sweet and juicy when cooked. Just peel the woody outsides.

Roast green beans once and you’ll never go back to boiling them. A hot oven does its thing, leaving them wrinkled and charred with a meaty bite. Shallots amp up the flavor, a little butter adds just enough richness, and a last-minute flurry of parsley provides a blast of freshness. For a Chinese-ish variation, try swapping the salt for a few splashes of soy sauce, the butter for a little drizzle of toasted sesame oil, and the parsley for a dab of chile paste.

A classic root vegetable roast with a twist, this one’s ignited by a blend of whole toasted spices that crackle between your teeth and unleash big flavor. The mix of roots includes kohlrabi, an oddball bulb that causes double takes at the farmer’s market—what is that?—but has an irresistible sweet, cabbage-y flavor that’ll win you over at first bite. Of course, virtually any combo of roots and tubers, or just one variety, works here, so feel free to swap in parsnips, celery root, rutabaga, radishes, and sweet potato.

Eggplant is usually cooked and then marinated, but I do the opposite. A ten-minute dunk in a bath of balsamic and olive oil lets the flavor soak in. Then into the oven it goes, the heat caramelizing the sugars in the balsamic, so it tastes even more complex and awesome. If I want to brighten the flavor, I’ll drizzle on a little more balsamic just before serving.

It’s hard to think of a more compelling trio than these summer treats. Because corn isn’t quite a vegetable—technically it’s a grain—I go big on scallions, roasting a ton of them whole with the corn so they turn super sweet.

CUTTING CORN KERNELS FROM THE COB: Shuck the corn and snap or trim off any stalk remaining at the base. Stand the corn on its base in the center of a large baking dish and steady it with one hand. With the other, use a sharp chef’s knife to remove the kernels, starting an inch or so from the tip of the cob and cutting down, as close to the cob as you can. The closer you cut to the cob, the less likely the kernels are to scatter. Just take care not to knock the knife against the rim of the baking dish, which could damage your blade.