Sweet and Spicy Carrots

How to make dinner colorful: Sweet and Spicy Carrots!

Sweet and Spicy Carrots take your meal from the mundane to the colorful! Carrots are so under appreciated. They’re cheap, good for you and super colorful. What’s not to love?

The carrot (Daucus carota) is a root vegetable often claimed to be the perfect health food. It is crunchy, tasty, and highly nutritious. Carrots are a particularly good source of beta carotene, fiber, vitamin K1, potassium, and antioxidants (1Trusted Source).

They also have a number of health benefits. They’re a weight-loss-friendly food and have been linked to lower cholesterol levels and improved eye health. What’s more, their carotene antioxidants have been linked to a reduced risk of cancer.

Carrots are found in many colors, including yellow, white, orange, red, and purple. Orange carrots get their bright color from beta carotene, an antioxidant that your body converts into vitamin A.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/carrots

Did I mention Sweet and Spicy Carrots are also fast and ridiculously easy to make as a side dish?

The only things that you really need when making this dish are a great non-stick pan (affiliate link) and a good vegetable peeler (affiliate link). If you want, you can get fancy with cutting the carrots, and you can use this fancy Crinkle Cutter (affiliate link) and make fun shapes to entice the little ones to eat these.

I’m not going to lie – these are not universally enjoyed by all our boysies. If forced, they’ll try them, but Bert and I are usually the only ones eating  them. It’s ok. More for us.

Honestly though, I don’t get it – Sweet and Spicy Carrots are honey sweet and mildly spicy and so, so pretty!

Put your peeled, sliced veggies in a non-stick pan, add the water, and sprinkle with kosher salt.

Add the butter…

And toss in a thinly sliced jalapeno and a bit of butter.

You can add as much or as little of the pepper as you want. You can put in one big piece and take it out before serving if your people don’t do spicy. Or you can slice it super thinly, and add it sparingly. It does add some nice color. I’ve found that the thinner the slices are, the spicier the carrots will be. Remove the membrane and the seeds to cut back on the heat a little too.

I always cut off and taste a little bit of the jalapeno to check and see how spicy it is – lately they run the gamut. They’re not usually super duper spicy – at least around Erieland.

Drizzle honey over the carrots.

Then let the carrots cook, covered, until the water is mostly gone and there is a bit of syrupy goodness left in the pan. The carrots should be tender but not mushy. (That’s another recipe…)

Sweet & Spicy Carrots

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Sweet & Spicy Carrots

Servings: 4 servings

Cost: $1.67

Sweet and Spicy Carrots elevate an economical, healthy root veggie into an easy and colorful side dish. Made with only 5 ingredients, these beauties are on the table in under 20 minutes!

Print Recipe

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Ingredients

• 1 pound Carrots, peeled and cut into slices or coins
• 1 tbsp Honey
• 1 medium Jalapeno Pepper, sliced thinly
• 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
• 1/2 tbsp Butter

Instructions

• Put carrots in bottom of non-stick pan. Add 2 tablespoons of water, salt, sliced jalapeno and butter. Drizzle with honey.
• Cover pan, and heat over medium high heat until water comes to a boil. Turn heat to medium, and continue cooking until carrots are tender and most of the water is absorbed, about 7 minutes.
• Serve hot.

Try these the next time your plate is too pale!