Why You Should Never Roast Carrots In Olive Oil

We’ve recently written about how you shouldn’t cook roast potatoes in extra-virgin olive oil. And now, it turns out that there’s a better fat for carrots ― at least, if you want to extract all their delicious flavour. 

Recently, cooking school Milk Street Kitchen shared a TikTok which revealed that butter does a more delicious job than oil alone for roasting carrots ― though there are some caveats. 

Describing the resulting butter-basted veg as “magic,” Milk Street cooking school director Rosemary Gill (who told us all to cook our spuds for mash in milk) shared that “a drizzle of butter caramelises and adds fragrant nuttiness” to carrots. 

They’re “so much better than plain olive oil-roasted root vegetables,” she added.

Let’s keep it low and slow

Gill says the butter is mixed with olive oil before being applied to the root veggies. 

Refined olive oil has a higher smoke point than butter (though not extra-virgin olive oil), meaning the combo can withstand the heat a little better than butter alone could. 

On top of that, “The milk solids in the butter caramelise in the oven, adding yet another layer of flavour to the final dish,” Gill adds. 

In this case, it’s a good idea to slow-roast the carrots on a low heat for a long time. You don’t want to risk burning the butter. 

Any other tips?

Yep! 

Gill recommends roasting citrus with your carrots ― “when you have warm, roasted orange juice, it just makes a much more sophisticated dish than plain fresh orange juice,” she shared. 

She also recommends using za’atar, cumin, or caraway on the veggies.

“Just make sure you add your spices halfway through so that they don’t burn,” she says.

Keep the “herby, spicy, citrus-y, beautiful butter” that’s left in the pan after the carrots have cooked, too, she suggests. It’s delicious drizzled over the carrots. 

And if you want to go all-out (like for Christmas dinner), chuck some pomegranate molasses and pistachios on top (ooh). 

“And by the way, for the best results, cut your carrots on the bias,” Gill shares at the end. “They get a lot of surface area and more caramelisation.” 

You can watch all the tips here: