How to Roast Vegetables

It's another how to tutorial.  Aren't you guys excited?  I know I am, but that's because I get to eat the fruits of my labor here.  Roasting vegetables brings out a natural mild sweetness, and it's so easy.  This is one of my favorite ways to prepare my veggies.

Someone asked me specifically about roasting eggplant, so keep reading, because I have eggplant specific tips interspersed throughout.  I'll bold those, so they stand out!

First you want to pick out the vegetables you want to roast.  You can roast pretty much any vegetable really, but root veggies work exceptionally well, as do Brussels sprouts, asparagus, squashes, and eggplants.

My vegetables of choice for today's tutorial are a red potato, a sweet potato, a red onion, a zucchini, a butternut squash, an eggplant, and an entire bulb of garlic.  I've mentioned that there's no such thing as too much garlic, right?!

Next you should preheat your oven to 400°.  Do NOT put the vegetables in a cold oven; it MUST be hot!

Now you'll need to prepare the vegetables.  Wash them all; yes, even the ones you are going to peel!  Peel the ones you wish.  In this case, I peeled the sweet potato, but I left the skin on the red potato.  I peeled the skin from the onion and the garlic, and I peeled the butternut squash.

There's no need to peel the eggplant.  Just cut off the top.  When choosing eggplant for roasting, I've found the smaller ones are better.  They are less bitter and more firm.  You also want to use them within a day or two of buying them, as they tend to break down rather quickly, becoming spongy.

Once the vegetables have been washed and peeled, cut them into uniform sized pieces.  Uniformity is important here so that they'll cook more or less evenly.

If you are only roasting eggplant, after you have it cut up, place the pieces in a colander and lightly salt.  Let them sit for about half of an hour.  This further reduces any bitterness, and it also reduces the moisture content of the eggplant.

Put all of your vegetables in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil.  A couple of tablespoons should do.  Less is more!

When you are roasting just eggplant, you need to be especially mindful of the oil.  Eggplant absorbs liquids very rapidly.  The more oil you add, the more it will soak up.  If you use too much oil, you aren't going to end up with roasted eggplant, but with a big soggy oily mass of a sponge like vegetable.  Just barely coat it.

Season to taste.  In this case I just used sea salt and freshly ground pepper.  Sometimes I use dried Italian seasoning, and from time to time I use fresh herbs.  It all just depends on what you like.

Gently stir the vegetables until all of the pieces are evenly coasted with olive oil and seasonings.

Spray the bottom of a roasting pan with olive oil or non-stick cooking spray, and add the vegetables to the pan.  Make sure they are in a single layer, with some space around each veggie piece.  If you put too much in the pan, the vegetables will STEAM, not roast.  There's nothing wrong with steamed vegetables, but that's not what we're doing here, so leave room!

Put the vegetables on the middle rack of your preheated oven and set the timer for ten minutes.  Remove them from the oven and stir/flip them.  Make sure you lay them out in a single layer again, and put them back for ten more minutes.  Remove and stir one last time.  Return to oven for final ten minutes.

It generally takes about 30 minutes, sometimes a bit more, depending on how you like them and on how large you've cut the pieces.  Again, if you are doing just eggplant, it will probably take longer, due to the high moisture content of the vegetable.  They should be done in about 40 minutes.

They're done when they're browned around the edges and nicely caramelized on the tops.

Enjoy!