Glazed Carrots

Super easy to make, Glazed Carrots are a great addition to either a weeknight meal or a fancier dinner. The carrots are sautéed in butter, then sprinkled with brown sugar at the end. A simple side dish, but full of flavor.

My family calls these “candy carrots”. They are one of our favorite side dishes – well, for everyone except Kade (8). He likes his carrots raw, preferably dipped in ranch dressing, but he will eat them straight up with nothing but the dirt from his hands for seasoning.

I think that carrots are a great vegetable for sautéing. They are sturdy, so they hold up well to getting moved around a frying pan or sauté pan. Because they have their own natural sugars, they also tend to pick up a bit of caramelization while they cook.

In my personal, private, biased opinion, carrots taste best sautéed in butter. I think that the two of them were made for each other. The butter helps enhance the caramelization as no other fat can do, adding the perfect richness.

A sprinkling of salt is all that is needed for seasoning. My favorite is pink Himalayan salt. I know that structurally speaking, salt is salt. But there are flavor nuances for each different type of salt and for my palate, I like pink Himalayan. Plus, you can make really pretty lamps out of the big chunks of that salt. I have one. There is a smooth spot on it where my grandkids used to lick it after I first got it. 🙂

Although the trio of carrots, butter and salt is good just as it is, the addition of brown sugar turns this trio into a harmonious quartet. When the carrots are cooked just fork tender, I turn off the heat and sprinkle brown sugar over them, then toss to coat. The brown sugar quickly melts and baths the carrots in a light, sweet glaze. It’s that simple.

When you make these carrots, do your best not to overcook them. And be sure to stir or toss them around a bit in the pan while they are cooking. If they sit in one place for too long, they will burn. It’s those natural sugars that carrots have.

Use whatever salt you want to use with these. Don’t run out and buy pink Himalayan salt just because “Terri said it tastes the best.” I’ve used all sorts of salt on these carrots through the years and they all work just fine. Plus, I have a crazy wild sense of taste and smell which means that I am overly sensitive to the nuances of everyday life. Stinks are stinkier, sweets are sweetier, and everything is just more.

Here are your only instructions regarding the salt – salt, to taste, with whatever kind of salt you want to use.

As for the brown sugar, I like to use light brown sugar. For me, it has the perfect amount of molassesy caramely flavor. I’ve tried dark brown sugar, maple sugar and coconut sugar. Dark brown sugar overpowers the carrots. Maple sugar is okay, but milder than brown sugar. Coconut sugar does not dissolve well and honestly, it just doesn’t work with the carrot flavors. But, it’s YOUR carrots, so use whatever sugar makes you happy. Capisce?

Oh, and if you want to go a little over the top, add a dash of cinnamon. Just a little bit, but only if it’s Autumn or Winter. Don’t do the cinnamon thing for Spring or Summer. And since it’s Spring right now, forget I ever said anything about adding cinnamon.

In case you are wondering about the size of carrots to use, I suggest using big carrots. The ‘recipe’ is designed around using big carrots. Because we like Glazed Carrots so much, I allow two big carrots per person. If I have small or medium carrots, I adjust accordingly. I just keep peeling and slicing until the pile looks big enough.

One last thing you should know – the recipe isn’t really a recipe. It’s more of method of preparation. Vegetables are pretty much that way. They are prepared rather than constructed. Isn’t that cool?

Happy carroting!

 

 

 

You may also like: