6 Festive Vegetable Recipes for your Holiday Feast
Don’t forget the vegetables when you’re planning your family feast. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, here are six vegetable side dishes that suit any celebration.
6 Thanksgiving vegetable recipes that will shine on your holiday table this weekend
Roasted Root Vegetables with Molasses Cider Glaze
Roasted Root Vegetables with Molasses Cider Glaze
Roasted root vegetables recipe with molasses cider glaze recipe. Served in a hollowed out roasted squash, it’s impressive, and easy.
- Category: Entrees and sides
Ingredients
Scale
For the cider glaze:
- 2 1/2 cups apple cider (or apple juice)
- 1 Tbsp. brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp. Crosby’s Fancy Molasses
For the vegetables:
- 1 medium-sized buttercup squash, top third cut off, and seeds removed
- 4–6 cups of root vegetables, cut into one-inch dice (a mixture of carrots, parsnips, turnip, rutabaga, sweet potato, beets)
- 1 red onion, sliced
- 2 firm, tart apples, peeled and diced
- 4–5 cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1/3 cup roughly chopped fresh sage or 6–8 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 3 Tbsp. olive oil
- Sea salt & pepper to taste
For the cranberry pumpkin seed sprinkle:
- 2 tsp. butter or olive oil
- 2/3 cup pumpkin seeds
- pinch kosher salt
- pinch chili powder
- ½ cup dried cranberries
Instructions
To make the glaze:
- Combine apple cider and brown sugar in a small saucepan over medium high heat and simmer until it reduces to about 1/2 cup (15-20 minutes). Be careful not to overdo it.
- Remove from heat, add the molasses. Set aside.
Roast your veggies and apples:
- Place your choice of root vegetables, along with the apples, onion, garlic and herbs, into a large bowl and toss with 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil and the sage or thyme.
- Turn your mixture out onto a large baking sheet or pan lined with parchment paper.
- Season with salt and pepper
- Rub the inside of the squash, and the flesh side of the “lid”, with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
- Place it on a baking sheet, flesh side down.
- Put both pans in the oven and roast at 400 F until tender and starting to brown a bit. About 25-35 minutes.
- (Toss the chopped veggies every 10 minutes or so)
Toast your pumpkin seeds:
- Melt the butter (or warm oil) in a small pan over medium heat.
- Add pumpkin seeds to the pan along with the chili powder and toss with the butter.
- Toast gently until they start to pop, stirring them around in the pan to ensue nothing burns or browns too much.
- Remove from heat and stir in the cranberries.
To assemble your squash bowl:
- Place roasted quash on a warmed serving platter and fill with the roasted root vegetables.
- Pile extra roasted vegetables alongside the squash.
- Pour over the cider glaze and sprinkle with the roasted pumpkin seed cranberry mixture.
- To serve, slice squash into 4-6 wedges and plate, scooping up some extra root vegetables.
Notes
Adapted from A Periodic Table
Roasted Squash Salad with Cider Vinaigrette
Roasted Squash with Molasses Cider Glaze
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Molasses Glazed Carrots & Parsnips
Spice Roasted Cauliflower
And here is one more recipe, because cranberry sauce is delicious and so pretty on a plate…
Cranberry Sauce with Apples
Andrea Belcher
Fantastic ideas!
Lorraine
Happy thanksgiving! I hosted our family dinner yesterday and I made 3 of the recipes listed above, the roasted root vegetables in squash, the sweet and spicy cauliflower, and the cranberry sauce. Everyone loved them. They were a nice change; the squash was visually appealing but not too much work. Thanks for the recipes.