Kitchen Improv: Roasted Brussel Sprouts
This is an ode to all the vegetables I neglected eating as a kid. To the broccoli I hid in soiled napkins and the green beans I dismissed during school lunch, I’m sorry. You all deserve so much more recognition.
Recipes aren’t hard and fast rules to be spellbound by. Instead, they’re training wheels to help you further learn your taste and cooking style. Below, you’ll find what-to-do’s and why-to-do-its in the form of guidelines, which can be applied to similar foods of the given example. Although roasting brussels sprouts may be as basic as it seems, I find that these babies always need more love and attention. Whether this post introduces you to a new technique or dish, I do hope this at least encourages you to experiment in your kitchen, cook without a standard recipe, and do so with confidence.
Cooking Guidelines for Roasting Brussels Sprouts
Tools: Baking tray, cutting board, chef’s knife, oven
Ingredients: Brussels sprouts, olive oil or high-temperature, neutral cooking oil, salt, pepper, sour cream, honey, flaky salt
Preheat oven at 400* or higher.
Start at 400* and observe how your vegetables cook. If they’re browning too fast on the outside and they’re still raw on the inside, lower the temperature. This all depends on many factors, which include the density of the vegetables themselves.
Rinse your sprouts and pat them dry with a lint-free towel.
Patting your sprouts dry will help them crisp instead of steam.
Cut off nubby stems ensuring that your leaves stay intact. Peel any tough outer leaves.
Stems are fibrous and turn out chewy after cooking. This is similar to broccoli stems that haven’t been peeled, kale stems, asparagus ends, etc.
Slice brussels sprouts into even, bite-sized pieces.
I halved mine in the photo above, but you can also cut your sprouts into quarters if they’re more manageable to eat. What’s important is that you cut your brussels sprouts the same size so that they cook at the same rate.
Place brussels sprouts in a single layer on a short-rimmed baking tray.
Short-rimmed baking trays allow food to make direct contact with surrounding oven air. A high-rimmed baking dish, like casserole dishes, will trap water released from the food and steam your vegetables instead.
Placing your food in a single layer mitigates steaming too. Overcrowding the tray with food on top or nearly on top of one another will turn your food mushy and will make it difficult to brown. (hint: if you’re on a crowded subway, how much space do you want between you and someone else?)
Douse your vegetables in enough olive oil to coat. Season with salt, pepper, and spices of your choosing. Toss it all together.
Olive oil imparts flavor, allows seasoning to stick, and helps food crisp evenly. A high-temperature neutral oil, like vegetable oil, works great here too.
Brussels sprouts all have their unique shapes and sizes meaning exact seasoning measurements don’t matter. Sprinkle seasonings across your sprouts and use your hands to toss.
Toss and taste your sprouts for seasoning.
Eat a couple to see if they’re properly seasoned to your taste. If not, adjust as you go! As you’re learning, start with a light hand and keep building until you reach a point where your taste buds dance.
Turn brussels sprouts cut sides down and place the tray in the oven.
Having the cut sides down means maximum caramelization, the process when sugars from vegetables oxidize. The sprouts’ larger surface area will help browning, a.k.a. when flavors become sweet, nutty, and savory.
Place your tray in the middle rack, where it can get an even distribution of heat. Place your tray closer to the bottom if you have an older oven that needs more heat.
This is a good time to check for over hot spots. If over time you’ve noticed food in your oven baking at different speeds, rotate your tray in the middle of the roasting.
Roast and remove when they’re done.
It’s more reliable to look for doneness rather than having oven time. Every oven is different, and all sprouts weren’t grown the same! Key indicators for doneness look like even browning, taste like nuttiness and sweetness, and feel like your vegetables are soft yet retain bite (not mushy nor raw and crunchy).
Lay down sour cream on a plate and top with brussels sprouts.
Flavor is composed of aroma, looks, and taste. Keeping this in mind, I smeared some fat down, in the form of sour cream, to help with texture and overall looks of the dish. This sour cream also adds tanginess and acidity to further break down the starchiness of the brussels sprouts.
Drizzle honey and add flaky salt.
Honey amplifies the sweetness that the browning brought out in the naturally bitter vegetable. The flaky salt also adds a nice crunch, which I absolutely love.
Cooking Improvisation
Now that you have the basics of roasting brussels sprouts down, you can replicate these techniques with other hearty vegetables! When creating your own dishes, think about texture, balance, look, smell, and feel.
Take a vegetable + coat in fat and seasoning + heat at 425 or higher = Roasted vegetables
You can add and switch up many of the elements you see in the formula above. Think about the vegetable’s natural taste and start complementing and contrasting it with additional ingredients. Some examples of things to get your mind churning below:
Love crunch? Add toasted nuts or even make it mix of crushed nuts and spices.
Out of honey? Agave, maple syrup, or even a silky vinaigrette works here.
Need to make this meaty? Add mushrooms or even cook off bacon and toss the vegetables in its rendered fat
The possibilities are endless once you have the hows and whys of cooking. So rather than being beholden to your measuring spoons for roasting, have fun and use your five senses to cook!
