Roasting for soups, sides & dips

Using your oven to simply roast vegetables will enable you SO much variety in making all kinds of SIMPLE and flavorful recipes, it’s way more than making sweet potato fries! But it is that of course too! We’ll divide these lessons into three parts for each category all based on the simple method of roasting. So first, what is THAT?

Roasting: using your oven to caramelize/soften and cook your food to create depths of flavors. Typically you will roast your foods at the temp 350 - 400F. I typically put my oven on the convection roast setting, if you don’t have that, just set the temp to preheat to this temp range. I use 385F.

**You can use your same healthy oils, typically I’ll do olive oil, but you can also do avocado or coconut. Again I highly recommend the plant based oil sprays that you buy at the store without any other ingredients OR an oil mister like this one here and keep all use of all to an absolute minimum. I have shifted to a new method which allows me to mostly be completely oil free.

I steam my potatoes/carrots/zucchini until they are softened and then put them in the air fryer or oven without any oil at all. This way they get that nice browning affect and you maintain nutrients AND you keep fat intake down a LOT. OILS are pure fat and I noticed a dramatic difference from cutting them out.

You also just need cookie sheets/roasting pans of any kind and I also use silpat liners

Below the pictures are the methods and formulas for each, soups, sides, and dips, all simply use roasted veggies as a base and you can create from there!

Basic Roasting

THE FORMULA: Same size chopped veggies of similar density. Yes you can do this straight from frozen. There will be water within the veggies so it will take a little longer and you really need to watch it so it doesn’t burn, but yes it’s a VERY easy shortcut for cooking.

SAME SIZE CHOPPED VEGGIES + HEALTHY OIL (LIGHTLY SPRAYED) AVOCADO/OLIVE/COCONUT + HIMALAYAN SALT OR REAL SALT + DRIED HERBS/SPICES

PLACE IN OVEN AT 375 - 400 F FOR ABOUT 25 ISH MINUTES OR UNTIL DONE. TURN THE PAN ONCE AND STIR AS NEEDED WHILE COOKING.

Vegetable Roasting Videos

How I cook brussel sprouts two ways!

Click the picture below to watch!

oven & Air fryer roasting for potatoes, spaghetti squash, carrots & cauliflower

Roasted dips

When I say “dips” I’m talking about things like hummus, spinach artichoke dip, tapenades and other things you use to dip chips/crackers/veggies in and also use for spreads like on gluten free toasts/crackers or in wraps or sandwiches. I want you to get the idea that you can use these things for multiple purposes to constantly add flavors to your food. Typically there are sugars/citric acid/natural flavors in a lot of the store bought ones so that’s what we’re avoiding plus all the BEANS! I mean nothing against beans but they are a carb and protein and can cause gas/bloating and just not as light as veggies!

Let’s break these dips down by categories:

hummus

Instead of all beans, all chickpeas or garbanzo beans you can swap out some or all of the legumes. You will see lots of flavored hummuses in the stores now, and this is what they’re doing but we do it without all the preservatives and like anything, it takes MINUTES!

What you need: a food processor or strong high powered blender

Formula: BASE (beans, cooked) AND/OR Roasted veggies + oil + Flavor enhancers + Liquid (sometimes!)

A traditional hummus is simply this: cooked chickpeas + tahini paste + garlic + lemon juice + salt

So let’s make some varieties of hummus!

traditional cauliflower hummus

Roast cauliflower with oil/salt; let cool add to blender with 1-2 TBSP tahini paste + 1/2 - whole fresh squeezed lemon + 1-2 cloves garlic (or season cauliflower with garlic powder) + salt, blend and if you need a little water, add it slowly just to loosen.

OR use cauliflower AND chickpeas (sprouted) or another kind of bean

My mom’s famous black bean dip

1 package low-sodium black beans, drained & rinsed + 3/4 cup of salsa (i use med size jar) + fresh lime juice + 1 tsp ground cumin + handful of fresh cilantro + salt to taste

Directions In the bowl of a food processor, puree the black beans, salsa, garlic, lime juice, cumin, water and salt until smooth. Add the cilantro and pulse until just combined. **I would probably just throw the cilantro in instead of mincing it!

Red Pepper dip

Roast 1 large eggplant + 2-3 bell peppers cut up and seasoned with oil/salt/garlic/oregano; let cool, add to blender, add 2-3 fresh tomatoes + 2 cloves garlic + fresh parsley + tahini + 1/2 cup black olives

If you add water/broth to this you will thin it out to make a sauce, if you add 1-2 TBSP olive oil it will become a dressing, if you leave it it is a dip!

Spinach artichoke dip

Cheater alert! You can roast or steam artichokes if you want from scratch, but I usually buy organic artichoke hearts frozen OR in a jar packed in WATER not oil and use those.

Roast artichoke hearts (let thaw first in the fridge) season with oil/salt/garlic powder, also roast broccoli + white/yellow onions sliced into rings, let cool, add to blender; add a big handful of spinach + 2 cloves garlic + unflavored unsweetened almond/flax/hemp milk just eyeball this so add slowly to create the consistency you want + vegan parmesean

If you want to top with a crunchy topping and bake:

Use a food processor to crumble up gluten free crackers (like Mary’s) or just use GF breadcrumbs; mix the crumbs with a chia mixture (1 TBSP chia + 3-4 TBSP water, let gel); add chopped parsley and then pour the artichoke mixture in a glass oven safe dish, top with crumbs and bake until crispy

OR

Just crumble gluten free crackers over dip #easy

So many things to try! You really cannot mess this stuff up! Start using flavors that are familiar and you know work together and then keep expanding! If you create a delicious soup/dip/side please share and post it in the group for all of us to try!