Intuitive Recipe: Fall Roasted Root Vegetables
As the days grow cooler and the leaves begin to turn, there’s nothing quite like the comfort of roasted fall vegetables to warm the soul. As vata season begins, it’s the perfect time to balance the light, dry qualities of fall with grounding, nourishing foods. This simple, nourishing recipe brings together the earthy flavors of seasonal root vegetables, roasted to perfection with high quality oil to stay grounded and spiced to kindle agni (digestive fire). Whether as a side dish or the star of your meal, it’s a delicious way to celebrate the bounty of autumn.
This is an intuitive recipe template, meaning it’s meant to help you encourage experimenting with different combinations of vegetables, oil, spices, shapes, and temperature. Tune into your senses — feeling the texture of the vegetables, smelling the spices — as you go and you will end up with something delicious and enjoy the process!
Fall Roasted Root Vegetables
Serves 4 as a side dish
Ingredients
~1lbs of root vegetable (e.g. mixed or single: sweet potato, carrots, beets, parsnips)
Salt
Olive oil, Sunflower oil or ghee
Spices (e.g. black pepper, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, allspice)
Optional citrus, fresh herbs
- Preheat oven to 400-425 (depending on how you cut potato / how long you have).
- Wash and/or (if desired) peel vegetables . Cut into cubes or longer ‘fry’ shape.
- Spread cut veggies on a sheet pan and lightly cover with oil, salt and desired spices. Use your intuition on how much salt and spice (e.g. 2-3 pinches of salt and spice each should be good for one large sweet potato).
- Mix everything with hands or a utensil and lay flat on sheet.
- Roast for 30-45 minutes depending on how small the pieces are. Mix about halfway through. If you have an air fryer you can shorten that by about half, but it might not stay as sweet and moist.
- Optional to add a squeeze of lemon or lime after roasting and some fresh herbs (e.g. basil, mint).
Notes:
- For sweet potatoes, orange and white work better for roasting than purple ones.
- 1/4lb (raw) is usually about one serving size.
- If you cut the veggies into small cubes or thinner fries, they will cook faster and can get a little crispy abound the edges. If you keep them larger, they will take longer, but will stay moist and get sweeter (or creamy, with sweet potato).
- If you’re unsure about timing, do a taste test about halfway through to get a gauge.