Sweet + Savory Thanksgiving Vegetables
My Sweet + Savory Roasted Thanksgiving Vegetables are the perfect side dish to win over even the biggest brussels sprouts avoider. Try this incredibly easy recipe to add nutritious flavor to your holiday table!
Did you know that our genes actually dictate our ability to taste bitter compounds?
Yep! Variants of a specific gene in the taste bud department, render some individuals “supertasters” who have the ability to taste things other people cannot.
This could be looked at as a good thing, or a bad thing.
Some studies show that supertasters eat fewer vegetables because of an aversion to the bitter taste found in many of them.
Unfortunately, it’s this same bitter taste that actually imparts nutrition from these veggies as bitterness is produced by healthful compounds known as phytonutrients, which prevent and fight chronic disease.
But there’s good news, studies also show that masking the bitterness with sweet or salty flavors can improve the acceptability of vegetables.
When I learned that I was a supertaster, it immediately made sense. I’ve always liked veggies, but only when they were sauced-up, and particularly with a sweet taste.
These Sweet + Savory Thanksgiving Vegetables made with all farm-fresh veggies from Milk and Eggs are the perfect holiday side dish for all taste buds.
You’ve got your classic holiday veggies — brussels sprouts and butternut squash — roasted to perfection with notes of maple for the tasters and cumin for the non-tasters.
The flavor produced perfectly melds and masks the best (carmelized squash) and worst (bitter brussels compounds) aspects of this dish.
My dad, who I suspect is also a supertaster based on his extreme abhorrence of all cruciferous vegetables, even gave this dish a thumbs up.
The nice thing about this healthy Thanksgiving side dish is that it doesn’t require a large amount of sugar to reap the bitter-bashing benefits. This recipe uses a mere tablespoon and a half of pure maple syrup to produce it’s subtly sweet taste.
- 2 cups butternut squash, peeled and cubed
- 2 cups golden beets, peeled and cubed
- 1½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1½ tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 2 cups brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
- ¼ cups dried cranberries
- salt + pepper to taste
- Heat oven to 350.
- Toss butternut squash and beets with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 tablespoon maple syrup, and cumin.
- Distribute on a baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes.
- Toss brussels sprouts with remaining olive oil.
- Remove vegetables from oven, toss, and add brussels sprouts to the sheet.
- Roast for an additional 20-25 minutes, tossing halfway through.
- Remove veggies from oven and drizzle with remaining maple syrup. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Add veggies to a serving dish and top with dried cranberries.
- Serve immediately.
ps – for my local Angelenos, all of the veggies in this recipe can be found on Milk & Eggs and delivered straight from a local farm to your doorstep in less than 48 hours!
Also, I’m doing a Milk & Eggs giveaway over on Instagram this evening and two winners will each get $50 to spend on groceries!
Want more nutritious plant-based Thanksgiving recipes? Try these:
My Vegan Green Bean Casserole made with a quick and easy homemade cream of mushroom soup.
A creamy and creative Lemongrass + Ginger Butternut Squash Soup.
This Pear Pomegranate and Pecan Arugula Salad tossed in a light and flavorful Pear Vinaigrette that only requires three main ingredients!
And stay tuned tomorrow for my final plant-packed holiday recipe – my vegan Thanksgiving Lentil Loaf!
PIN the recipe for later! >>
Weigh-in: Had you heard of “supertasters” before? Do you think you might be one? Will you try these Sweet + Savory Thanksgiving Vegetables?
*This post is sponsored by Milk & Eggs but all recipes, photos, and opinions are my own.
amanda -runtothefinish says:
Beets are about the only veggie I don’t like, so I think this might just be the dish to get me to rethink it with the sweet flavors!!
Jenn says:
I love roasted veggies! These look so good. Would be perfect on the Thanksgiving table!
Jessica @Small Bites by Jessica says:
These sound super tasty! The perfect Thanksgiving addition!
Christine says:
Yum! I’d love to add these to my Thanksgiving table :) Especially the brussel sprouts – looks delicious!
Terry says:
My main deal with veggies is that they’re boring. My mom’s way of serving vegetables was to steam/boil them and add salt. We didn’t eat many greens, maybe broccoli or green beans (both cooked to mush) on occasion as my dad didn’t grow up eating home-cooking (his mother hated to cook and fed her five kids mostly TV dinners), but even corn or carrots served this way was ho-hum. I asked once or twice about cheese sauce and the reply was “No, that adds fat and calories.” In addition we spent two weeks every summer with my grandparents, both born-and-bred Southerners who insisted that we eat black-eyed peas or yellow squash with most of our suppers. Both were vile and for the most part still are. Since getting married I’ve gradually learned to make everything from scratch, and while I *want* to like veggies – especially greens for the numerous nutritional benefits – I still struggle to find ways to sneak them in as presenting them as a side, even sauteed with garlic, is…boring. Cheese sauce is now an option but making it from scratch can be tricky; green beans are great battered and deep-fried, but this kind of defeats the “healthy” aspect. To make things more complicated, the add-ins I might use to render these and other green veggies edible are frowned upon as “inflammatory” – sugar, dairy products, bacon. Not only this but the suggested enhancements involve equally (or more) vile-tasting dressings made with vinegar or lemon juice, also with no sugar or insufficient fat to tame the pucker. Roasting is one potential weapon but can’t be applied to everything without also merging into the “boring” category. I’ve managed to sneak greens (the milder ones like spinach and chard at least) into scrambled eggs or mix them with potatoes, and I’ve even tried a chicken-and-mustard-greens quesadilla with enough cheese to cover the bitterness. But again dietary recommendations that discourage starchy vegetables, gluten and/or dairy hamstring these tactics. What’s a bored supertaster to do?