Raw carrots are one of my favorite snacks, but cooked carrots are not often something you will find me choosing to cook or eat. I think it’s due to my aversion to mushy vegetables and, other than greenbeans, carrots are the most notorios for being cooked into oblivion. This recipe keeps a little of the texture to our carrots by broiling instead of baking or cooking on the stove top. The flavor comes from a rich, dark beer, sweet brown sugar, smoked paprika, salty feta and crunchy pepitas. The best part is, these beer glazed carrots with feta and toasted pepitas can be made in just one pan and come together in under 30 minutes.
Gather your ingredients
Once this recipe gets going, it moves pretty quick so you are going to want to set out all of your ingredients before getting started. You can use baby carrots, whole carrots cut into 2 inch long pieces or my personal favorite, mini carrots. They are just so cute and require little to no work. Just give your carrots a glance before getting started and make sure they are ready. You will also need a stout beer, smoked paprika (yep, smoked), turbinado sugar, garlic powder and salt for the glaze. My favorite cooking vessel for this recipe is my 10 inch cast iron skillet, but you could use anything that is both stovetop and oven safe. To start, heat your pan on the stovetop over medium heat. Once your pan is hot, add 1/4 cup of pepitas to a dry pan and stir constantly 2-3 minutes until they release their oils and begin to toast. You will hear a popping sound as they toast. If you’d like to save a step, you could also purchase toasted pepitas and skip this part. Remove your pepitas from the pan and set aside to cool. That brings us to the glaze.
Beer Glaze
Did you know there is a carrot museum? Yes, carrot not carat. According the the Carrot Museum, located exclusively on the world wide web, we’ve been enjoying carrots for at least as long as we’ve been recording what we eat. So while you enjoy these carrots, know that you are participating in millinia long tradition. And if you ever feel bad about instagraming your food, the ancient egyptians drew pictures of their food, so we aren’t doing anything new. Enough history. Let’s get to the good stuff…the beer glaze. For the glaze for these carrots, we are going to add the beer, sugar, and seasonings to our skillet and increase the heat to medium high. You might have some leftover beer. What you choosed to do with that is nobody’s business. Stay with the glaze, stiring frequently. Once it begins to bubble, allow the glaze to continue to cook, reducing by about half until slightly thickened. It will be similar to the consistency of maple syrup. This reduction will take about 10 minutes. While the glaze is reducing, turn your oven to broil and allow it to preheat.
Cooked Carrots
Once your glaze is reduced, toss the carrots in the glaze and place your pan on the middle rack of your oven. Allow to cook 4 minutes, remove and toss the carrots. Return to the oven 4 minutes longer. This will produce carrots that still have a little crunch in the center. For carrots that are fully softened, you can increase the cooking time by 2-4 minutes. Broiling will help our glaze to reduce further and blister the outside of the carrots, adding to the smokiness. These are not your grandma’s glazed carrots, just to be clear. These are fancy pants, serve them at your next dinner party, grownup glazed carrots. Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes, tossing every few minutes. As the glaze cools, it will thicken and coat your carrots in shiny, sticky goodness.
Final Assembly
It’s time to bring this all together. This part is so easy. Have kids around? This would be a great time to get them involved. This is basically a recipe for carrot candy with sprinkles, so very kid friendly. Give your carrots one last toss in the sticky beer glaze. Probably an adult job because the pan may be hot. Little hands would be perfect to crumble the feta on top of the glazed carrots and sprinkle with the toasted pepitas. f you want the get your kids on board with more foods, get them into the kitchen. But that’s another conversation for another time. Your carrots are now ready to enjoy! Wandering what to serve these carrots with? They would make the perfect side dish for the Best Baked Chicken for an easy meal any night of the week.
To serve up these sweet and smoky Beer Glazed Carrots with Feta and Toasted Pepitas, this is what you need to know.
Beer Glazed Carrots with Feta and Toasted Pepitas
Equipment
- 1 10 inch cast iron skillet
Ingredients
- 1 pound carrots, baby, mini or full size carrot 2 inch long half-moons
- 2/3 cup stout beer
- 1/3 cup turbinado sugar
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 2 oz feta cheese, crumbled
- 1/4 cup pepitas, toasted
Instructions
- Place your skillet over medium heat and allow to fully heat. Add your pepitas to the skillet and toast, stiring constandly for 2-3 minutes. There will be a faint popping sound. Remove the pepitas from the skillet and set aside.
- Increase the temperature to medium high and add the beer, sugar, smoked paprika, salt and garlic powder. Bring to a boil and stir frenquently until the liquid reduces by half and forms a syrup similar in thickness to maple syrup.
- While your glaze is reducing, turn your oven to broil and allow to preheat. Once your glaze is ready, toss your carrots in the glaze and place the skillet in the middle rack of the oven.
- Cook for 4 minutes, remove and toss, and return to the oven for 4 more minutes.
- Remove the carrots from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Top with crumbled feta cheese and toasted pepitas to serve.
Notes
- While I prefer using whole mini carrots, you can easily use mini carrots, baby carrots or 2 inch long half moons of regular full size carrots in this recipe.
- Think you might have leftovers? Add your feta and pepitas to individual servings of the carrots, rather than the entire pan to keep your pepitas crunchy.
- Want to skip a step? Buy toasted pepitas and skip the first step of the recipe.