Pan-Fried Carrot and Parsnip Recipe - Noshing With the Nolands (2024)

FAQs

Should carrots and parsnips be parboiled before roasting? ›

Roasting Tips

Parboiling skin-on carrots and parsnips lets you soften them without them losing too much moisture.

While raw vegetables can often taste bitter, roasting them means that the dry heat of the oven helps caramelise the natural sugars within, resulting in the incredible sweet flavour of roasted carrots and parsnips.

Cooking instructions

Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan, then add the carrots and parsnips and toss to coat in the oil. Add the thyme, cinnamon, star anise and some seasoning. Cook over a medium heat for 15-20 minutes, turning the vegetables frequently, until golden brown and almost cooked through.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add carrots, cover partially, and simmer 5 minutes. Add parsnips, and cover partially. Simmer until vegetables are very tender, about 15 minutes.

Parboil if you prefer a soft texture.

You can skip straight to roasting, but parboiling the parsnips first will help prevent dry or chewy parsnips. To parboil, put whole or halved parsnips in salted, boiling water and cook for 8 minutes or until slightly tender.

There is, however, a trick to getting roasted carrots right. Undercook them, and the texture is tough and dense. Overcook them, and they're dry and wrinkled. The secret is to soften the carrots slightly by boiling them briefly before roasting.

Like most root vegetables, parsnips are filled with a rich history rooted in peasant food. They are more expensive to grow, harvest (the tops are cut by hand) and pack, which is why the parsnip is a bit more expensive than its orange twin, the carrot.

The cons of root vegetables

For example, there are 37 grams of carbs in a baked russet potato, and 24 grams in a medium baked sweet potato. Fung warns that if you eat more carbs than your body needs, it will store them as fat, leading to weight gain. Eating too many carbs in one sitting can spike your blood sugar.

Parsnips are a type of root vegetable, closely related to carrots and parsley root. They're rich in several important nutrients and antioxidants that may improve immunity, enhance digestive health, and aid weight loss.

Why are my roasted parsnips bitter? ›

However, if parsnips have been allowed to grow too big or remain too long in storage, they tend to get woodier and bitter. Thus, it is recommended that larger parsnips be peeled and that the “woody” core in the middle be cut out before preparing.

How to prepare parsnips. Young, small parsnips don't really need peeling – just scrub clean and serve whole. Older parsnips should be peeled very thinly with a peeler or sharp knife, then chopped into evenly sized chunks. If the central core is very fibrous, this should be cut away.

Both parsnips and carrots come from the same family, but where they differ most is their flavor. Parsnips have a sweeter, licorice-like taste with a hint of spice to them, as opposed to the carrot's sweetness that is more reminiscent of other types of winter squash.

What sets parsnips apart is their low-calorie content and high fiber, making them an excellent alternative to starchy vegetables like potatoes. In fact, for two centuries, parsnips were the primary source of dietary starch in the US before potatoes took over. But there's more to parsnips than just nutrition.

Parsnips may look like white carrots, and both vegetables are part of the parsley family, but the lighter colored, usually larger tubers are often treated more like potatoes due to their starchier texture.

Blanching the veggies before roasting them may allow you to have less salt on the vegetables and for them to caramelize a bit nicely without burning. Sometimes I have burned vegetables when roasting them until they were tender. So try this — enjoy the bounty.

Parboil potatoes, carrots, turnips and celeriac and the like because they are very dense. Don't parboil onions or other less dense roots. Parboil is faster and useful if you can't vary the heat of your oven e.g roasting a bird.

On the other hand, if your parsnips are oversized, you will need to trim out the bitter core before or after cooking. Peeled and pared parsnips will turn dark when exposed to the air, so it's important to cook them right away, or hold them in water with a bit of lemon juice added.

Peel the carrots and parsnips and cut each in half lengthways, then half again widthways, if large. Drop into a large pan of boiling salted water and cook for about 3-4 minutes.