Recipe: Brown Sugar-Coconut Glazed Rutabaga Salad
Brown sugar and coconut oil roasted, glazed rutabaga and snap peas are served warm, and drizzled with a brightly acidic dressing for a sweet and sour no-lettuce salad.
Rutabaga is having a moment. It’s showing up on menus and blogs, and in cookbooks. I’m not sure if we should give credit to the rise of the root vegetable-loving diets, like Whole30 and Paleo, or if it has become a necessity due to the upswing in winter CSAs.
But whatever the reason, rutabaga — the formerly overcooked, mushy, and faintly sulfuric root your grandma used to force you to eat — is now back. And it is cool.
Thank goodness we have discovered that rutabaga doesn’t have to be the stuff of childhood dinner-table trauma. The secret? All you have to do is roast it and it is magically transformed into sweet and caramely root vegetable heaven. That’s why, for the last no-lettuce salad of the week, I used roasted rutabaga as the base. Just peel, cube and roast.
After it is mostly tender, sprinkle on brown sugar and fresh snap peas for the final 10 minutes or so of roasting. The brown sugar melts and glazes the rutabaga and the peas become crisp tender. Then I doused it in a brightly acidic dressing and fresh scallions.
The results are definitely a far cry from the childhood rutabaga trauma in our memories!
Brown Sugar-Coconut Glazed Rutabaga Salad
Serves 4
Nutritional Info
Ingredients
- 3 pounds rutabaga, peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks
- 2 tablespoon coconut oil, warmed to melt
- 1 1/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt, divided
- 2 cups sugar snap peas, cut in half on the bias
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar or coconut sugar
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons avocado oil, or organic canola oil
- Freshly ground pepper to taste
- 4 scallions , finely sliced
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Toss rutabaga, coconut oil, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a large bowl to coat. Spread the rutabaga out in an even layer on a large rimmed baking sheet. Roast, stirring once or twice, until the rutabaga is almost completely tender, and browning on the bottom, 30 to 35 minutes. Scrape the rutabaga back into the bowl. Add snap peas and sugar and toss to coat. Spread the mixture back out onto the pans and return to the oven. Cook, stirring once or twice, until the peas are tender and the vegetables are glazed with the brown sugar, 8 to 12 minutes longer. Mound on a large serving platter.
Combine vinegar, oil, pepper, and the remaining 3/4 teaspoon salt in a small jar. Cover and shake to combine. Pour dressing over the vegetables and top with scallions.