Side Dishes

Sweet potatoes don’t need marshmallows, a casserole dish or an annual Thanksgiving appearance to be fabulous! Toss them with butter, honey and a little salt, roast them until the edges get dark and caramelized, and suddenly we have a side dish that tastes considerably more ambitious than the five minutes of work involved. 😉

These Honey Butter Roasted Sweet Potatoes are buttery, sweet, salty and gloriously golden around the edges. They work just as well next to a random Tuesday-night chicken breast as they do on a holiday table, which is exactly the kind of versatility we appreciate around here!

Cauliflower is perfectly fine steamed. It’s also perfectly fine wearing khakis and going to a quarterly budget meeting. But roast the hell out of it until the edges are dark and crispy, then give us ranch and hot sauce for dipping? Now we’re interested. 😉

This Crispy Roasted Cauliflower is ridiculously easy: olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and a hot oven. Eat it straight off the pan, dunk it in cool ranch, dip it in hot sauce Buffalo-style, or alternate between the two until an alarming percentage of a cauliflower has disappeared.

Asparagus is one of those vegetables that really doesn’t need much help. Give it some garlic, freshly grated Parmesan and a squeeze of lemon, roast it until the tips get a little crispy, and suddenly the green thing on the plate is getting considerably more attention than expected. 😉

This Lemon Parmesan Asparagus takes about 15 minutes, uses one pan and works with pretty much any dinner. Fast, fresh and absolutely no need to boil a vegetable into submission first!

Carrots are already sweet. But toss them into a skillet with butter and brown sugar and suddenly the vegetable we bought because we were trying to be responsible tastes suspiciously close to candy. 😉

These Brown Sugar Glazed Carrots are buttery, sweet, a little salty and covered in a glossy brown sugar glaze that takes about 20 minutes from start to finish. No roasting pan, no complicated glaze…just veggie perfection!

Brussels sprouts have suffered enough reputational damage from being boiled into tiny green balls of sad mush. Roast them instead and suddenly we’re dealing with crispy edges, caramelized centers, plenty of garlic and a glorious layer of Parmesan!

These Crispy Parmesan Brussels Sprouts take about 30 minutes, require one pan and turn a bag of vegetables into something people voluntarily steal off each other’s plates! 😉

Green beans are perfectly respectable on their own. But toss them with fresh garlic and Parmesan and roast them until the edges get blistered and crispy? Now we’re interested! 😉

These Garlic Parmesan Roasted Green Beans take about five minutes to throw together and 15-ish minutes in the oven. No boiling. No blanching. No ice bath.
We’re making a vegetable, not preparing it for surgery…;)

Regular mashed potatoes are already pretty fabulous, so naturally we’re going to mess with them 😉

These Brown Butter Parmesan Mashed Potatoes take everything we love about classic creamy mashed potatoes and add nutty brown butter, freshly grated Parmesan and just enough garlic to make everyone wonder why the potatoes are suddenly the best thing on the plate. Browning the butter takes about five extra minutes, which is dangerously close to effort around here, but the payoff is absolutely worth it!

Golden, crackly edges. Buttery centers. Punchy garlic. Bright roasted lemon. These smashed potatoes are the side dish that quietly steals attention from everything else on the plate! 😉

Bright, silky, and irresistibly creamy, this Lemon Pasta gets an upgrade with crispy chopped bacon. It’s fresh, rich, a little indulgent, and honestly… wildly satisfying!