Caramelized Roasted Turnips Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Do you have to peel turnips before you roast them? ›

It's not essential to peel turnips before cooking. If this skin appears to be thin enough you can leave it on and cook as is. However if the skin feels thick and leathery, you can peel it off with a sharp knife or vegetable peeler. Both the roots and leaves, also known as turnip greens, are safe to eat.

One turnip website from the United Kingdom notes that if you boil them, add a little sugar to tame the scent and add baking soda to reduce bitterness.

How do you get the bitterness out of turnips? Smaller turnips tend to be sweeter and less bitter, so start by selecting fresh, small, tender turnips and peeling them. Adding a little sugar to your turnips after cooking can also help to counteract any bitterness.

You can't make turnips taste better because they are the best tasting food there ever could be. Roast them instead of boiling them. Serve with salt, pepper, and butter. You can use other spices or things like vinegar too if you like.

How do you get the bitterness out of turnips? Peel the turnip about ¼" down, below the yellow bitterness line you can see when you cut the turnip in half. Boil the turnips in salt water. Add a few potatoes to the boiling water.

This is a bad practice, however, and you should avoid adding baking soda when boiling any type of vegetable. It has various unwelcome effects, such as softening the vegetable, altering the vegetable's flavor, destroying thiamine content, and hastening the loss of vitamin C.

Bitter greens are leafy greens or vegetables that have an intense bitter flavor profile. They include kale, mustard greens, collards, turnip greens, broccoli rabe, radicchio, chicory, and endive. The bitterness comes from chemical compounds called glucosinolates that can be found in the Brassica family.

Rutabagas are also generally much larger than turnips. So for a quick rule of thumb, the brownish-yellowish ones are rutabagas, and the smaller white and purple ones are turnips. In terms of their flavor, rutabagas are slightly sweeter-tasting than turnips whereas turnips have a slightly more radishy flavor.

And if their reputation for bitterness scares you or your kids, fear not. Roasting brings out their natural sweetness. Another secret is how you peel them. Bitter notes lie just under the surface of the skin, but you can eliminate this if you go a little deeper when peeling them.

Roasting mellows the flavor of turnips and concentrates their texture into a tender, melting vegetable. Serve these easy roasted turnips with other roasted vegetables (the sweetness of carrots is a good complement) alongside roasted meats or with a simple roasted chicken.

Why are my turnips tough? ›

Any root crop (potatoes, carrots, radishes, parsnips, turnips) needs a fine- textured, well-drained soil to grow properly. If the soil is too heavy, the crop will rot. If the soil is too lumpy or rocky, the roots will be tough, fibrous and misshapen.

Turnip peels are safe to eat, but you can peel a turnip using a vegetable peeler if you desire. If you have a larger turnip, bigger than two to three inches, you should peel the turnip—bigger turnips tend to have a more bitter skin.

Roast the turnips until they're tender and browned. Start checking them after about 30 minutes. Depending on their size and age, it may take up to an hour or more to become completely tender.

Add the turnips and potatoes to a large stockpot and fill the pot with water, enough to cover the vegetables. Heat over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, then simmer until the turnips are tender (they may take longer to cook than the potatoes), about 15 minutes.