Maple-Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Parsnips
Written by Shaina of Food for My Family.
If I look outside I’m greeted by a blanket of white. I’ve taken to wearing one of my husband’s sweatshirts around the house just to keep warm, and I’ve pulled out a pair of fingerless gloves to type in so that I retain a bit of feeling in my fingers as I tap on the keys.
I remember when I was younger. I would beg to put snow pants on over my jeans, hastily donning a hat that I didn’t bother to pull over my ears. I’d wear knit gloves that were soaked in minutes, and still, I’d continue packing the snow together, rolling it into balls and simply falling backwards into it, enjoying the split second of weightlessness that came with falling.
My teenage years brought with them a laziness when it came to covering up and staying warm. The cold didn’t cause me to run or screech, and I would spend hours during cross country ski practice wearing glorified long underwear skating around in the white fluff.
Photos by Shaina
Somewhere between then and now, I have become cold. Now winter makes me shiver and shake and head to the kitchen to make yet another cup of tea or coffee. I simmer soups in abundance and make roasts as often as possible, usually accompanied with a side of warm vegetables. The warmer and more comforting the better, in fact.
This side utilizes a few sweet potatoes and parsnips, roasted alongside a few winter leeks and a mix of maple and Dijon. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. It feels like comfort food even without loads of butter, cream or cheese, which just happens to make it an appropriate dish for a cold, January day in the dead of winter.
Maple-Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Parsnips
Ingredients
- 3 medium sweet potatoes peeled and thinly sliced into rounds
- 3-4 parsnips peeled and thinly sliced
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 leek finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- 2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard like Maille
- 2 Tablespoons fresh parsley
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400º F. Place sliced sweet potatoes and parsnips in a medium bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper and toss to evenly coat. Arrange the slices alternating between sweet potatoes and parsnips in the bottom of a small baking dish.
- In a medium skillet, heat remaining olive oil over medium heat. Saute leeks and garlic for 5 minutes. Pour in maple syrup and stir in the Dijon. Continue cooking for 2 additional minutes until syrup starts to simmer. Pour syrup and leeks over the sweet potatoes and parsnips evenly. Place in the oven for 30-40 minutes until cooked through. Remove from oven and allow to stand 5 minutes. Garnish with parsley and serve warm.
Nutrition
Do you have a favorite way to prepare winter root vegetables?
That dish looks mad pretty! Yum!
Yum! This looks delicious! I tend to roast my winter veggies. I am kind of lazy that way, throw everything in a bowl with olive oil/salt/pepper/red pepper flakes and call it a day. Then I can throw it in eggs in the morning, or over rice for dinner.
I’ve made a recipe just like this for awhile now, but never thought to cut and layer it like this. Really great. Thanks for sharing!
Visually -stunning! Amazing how ingredients that are simple can look wonderful! Love it.
Beautiful presentation, and such a nice way to use the Farmer’s market goods available now. I usually make soups or baked sweet potato fries.
I’m a big fan of both of those as well, Emily! 🙂
We have a blanket of white here in Seattle this morning, too, which is very unusual. It’s the weather man’s favorite day of the year. 🙂 This recipe looks absolutely perfect for a cold winter day. Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks, Mary, and enjoy the snow!
We love these roasted sweet potato wedges with a cilantro yogurt dip.
If I don’t have fresh herbs, sometimes I serve them with a tzatziki dip.
That dip sounds gooood!
That looks great. I’m always looking for a good way to incorporate sweet potatoes besides our usual baked sweet potato fries or adding it to stew. Thanks.
it looks beautiful! (now i’m sorry i used up my sweet potatoes last night! next time!)
This dish looks lovely… Definitely giving it a try soon!
I am always cold and running for the nearest warm cup of tea or hot meal. You’ll likely find me wearing a few layers inside my house!
I am always cold, I wear light sweaters even in the summer sometimes 😀 Love this dish!
Love the idea of combining sweet potatoes and parsnips. Two subtly sweet veggies to warm us from within! Plus, I could envision pureeing up some baby food easily with the same ingredients.
Totally right, Lea. Love how this would work for baby food as well.
Absolutely lovely. Must add these ingredients to my shopping list.
sounds good!
I have never had parsnips although I have heard good things about them. I am always looking for different ways to cook sweet potatoes so I definitely want to give this a try. Looks yummy!
It’s funny – as I sat down to the computer I pulled a throw blanket over my lap and wrapped my fingers around a mug of hot cocoa. It’s freezing here too! This side dish looks like the perfect side dish to accompany a comforting dinner.
So beautiful, Shaina! It reminds me of the ratatouille they make at the end of the movie.
Loved the baked sweet potatoes with maple syrup, easy and delicious…but, got nothing out of the parsnips…couldn’t taste them, and they were much more expensive than the potatoes…will just make this recipe with potatoes from now on…thanks for sharing it!
Thanks, Shaina. We had this tonight– due to quite the fussy bunch of kiddos mine was just dumped in the dish and baked but it was delicious, nonetheless. Next time, I’ll go for your beautiful layered spiral look. 🙂
We have an abundance of parsnips from our CSA and I’m always looking for good recipes for them. Plus, this includes maple syrup one of my all time favorite ingredients.
Leeks aren’t listed in the ingredients. How about revising and tell us how much? Otherwise, it sounds wonderful.
Thank you for your lovely culinary creation!
This is just a little note to let you know that I have featured this delicious looking recipe on my blog.
Thank you for all that you do 🙂
This recipe was great! I swapped half an onion for the leeks and used thyme instead of parsley (added before pouring the maple Dijon mixture. It was one of the sides at thanksgiving and everyone loved it! Thanks for the inspiration!
So glad you enjoyed it, Christine! Happy Thanksgiving.
Made this dish for our holiday dinner. It was excellent! Like Christine above, I didn’t have any leeks, so I used a whole (medium) onion instead, and it was still good. My guess is the leeks would give a more subtle flavor, but, even with the onion, this was still a wonderful dish. I also doubled the recipe, so it ended up taking almost an hour to bake. We’ll definitely be making this again! Thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it!