These Simple Buttered Carrot Batons are an effortless and flavourful side for all manner of meals. The sweet root vegetable is lightly coated in butter before serving, adding a touch of richness – don’t overlook this classic veg, it deserves all the love.
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Whilst I have certainly come around to the joys of both roasted carrots and mashed carrot as great ways to serve them, simply boiled carrots will always be my first love. I think carrots are the one thing I’ve actually eaten my whole life and I don’t intend to stop now.
So of course there is nothing especially complicated about boiling carrots. But I’ve created this recipe with the intention of taking you through the step by step process, including how to prepare them, in detail. And telling you my best little tips and tricks on how to perfect the process. Which can be especially helpful for less confident cooks.
I can be regularly heard preaching that everyone is a perfectly capable cook. But that a lack of experience combined with a lack of confidence can be a real stumbling block. So along with my other cooking basics recipe like my savoy cabbage, I hope that this can provide some help in building confidence in the kitchen. Or, if you just want to know the best point of the cooking process to add butter, I’ve got you too.
How to Serve Buttered Boiled Carrots
Although cold uncooked carrots are totally fine and delicious to eat, I do believe that cooked carrots do need to be eaten hot. Or at least on the warm side. I often cook them slightly in advance, I don’t want to be bothering with draining them right when I’m serving up a meal. And they will happily sit in a pan and can take a quick blast of heat just before serving.
Carrots are perfect served with anything that I’d call a “gravy meal”. So with everything from a simple meal of pork chops with mashed potato with the carrots to a full festive roast dinner with a roast turkey and all the trimmings. Or even stuffed into a giant Yorkshire pudding with chipolata sausages, crispy air fried sweet potatoes and a simple onion gravy.
I appreciate that gravy doesn’t necessarily have the chokehold on everyone that it does on me. So here are some more meal ideas to include carrots:-
- Add to a pub style grill meal of gammon or sirloin steaks with chippy chips instead of, as well as, peas.
- Serve with thick slices of a glazed ham joint along with air fried whole baby potatoes and green beans. For bonus points, use the ham boiling water to cook the carrots – the flavour is intense and insanely good!
- Marry the carrots with Beef and Ale Pie made with buttery puff pasty (recipe coming soon) along with air fried broccoli and butternut squash cubes.
Simple Boiled Carrots Ingredients
Carrots
The options of carrots available to buy in British supermarkets has massively increased over the last decade or so.
You can buy thumb sized chanteney carrots which are best served whole. Fancy carrots of different colours like purple and yellow (fun fact: all carrots used to be purple!). And bunches of freshly picked carrots with their tops still attached. These are admittedly a bit harder to find outside of the main harvest season.
And then there are the standard orange carrots that you buy in entirely unnecessary plastic bags or ideally (and often cheaper) loose. I do like to look for the loose carrots, not because I’m a staunch eco-warrior, but because I like to pick out the big chunky ones.
Fat carrots are simply easier to cut into nice thick batons. I really don’t think you can tell any great taste difference between big and little ones, nor is there any discernible texture difference once cooked. Smaller carrots can still be cut but they will just produce less pieces per carrot. I’ve written the recipe giving a weight of carrots needed rather than number of carrots to make things easier.
Salt
I’ve used two types of salt in this recipe. Fine salt/table salt is cheap as chips so this is what I use to salt the cooking water. Some of the salt permeates the carrots as they cook helping to season them more thoroughly.
The second type is sea salt flakes. This is what I use to season the vast majority of my food. Maldon sea salt is my preferred choice. It is milder in flavour than table salt and has a little crunch too which I like. If you only have regular table salt, use half the quantity I’ve suggested as it is stronger.
Butter
I only use salted butter. I’m sometimes a bit extra and make homemade butter, especially when I find a lot of double cream on heavy discount. But like many people, I always have a tub of something spreadable in the fridge too. I prefer a spreadable butter rather than a margarine as I do think the taste is distinctly different. If you want to use this rather than proper block butter then feel free.
Be Flexible
With this being a “cooking basics” type of recipe, it is ripe to being adapted and added to.
You can start by using a cooking water that isn’t just plain salted water. Add some orange juice to infuse a citrus tang and richness to the carrots. Or, as I’ve mentioned above, if you’ve boiled any meat like a ham joint, use the cooking water to cook the carrots.
Next, adapting the butter that you’re glazing the carrots with after they’ve been drained is a rally easy way to add extra flavours. Start simply with a basic compound butter like garlic butter which you can make from scratch or even buy ready made. I’ve recently bought a chimichurri flavoured butter which would be an amazing option.
You can also add fresh herbs or citrus zest. Make a classic flavour combination by stirring in lots of fresh coriander just before serving. Or go heavy on the chopped chives for more of an oniony kick.
You can also add a little sweetness to make something more akin to traditional vichy carrots which are cooked in a butter and sugar water with added fresh thyme. Do this by adding a drizzle of honey or maple syrup to the carrots along with the butter.
Vegetarian or Vegan Boiled Carrots
My recipe is suitable for vegetarians as written. To make it vegan all you need to do is replace the butter with a vegan alternative or even a little olive oil.
Make Allergy Friendly Boiled Carrots
This recipe is free from egg, gluten and nuts
Dairy Free: To make these buttered carrots dairy free you simply need to replace the butter with a dairy free alternative. Look for something pretending to try and taste like butter for the best taste. Or you can use olive oil instead.
Please note that this recipe may contain other allergens not referred to above and any variations suggested have not been tested unless otherwise stated. For more information regarding any dietary information provided on this website, please refer to my Nutritional Disclaimer.
Equipment Notes for Simple Buttered Carrot Batons
You don’t need anything fancy to boil carrots. A saucepan is essential as is a decent sharp knife to cut them. You can peel the carrots with a knife but it is much easier if you have a peeler – I like the Y shaped speed peelers.
If you don’t have access to a saucepan and stovetop, you can actually make these carrots in the microwave. Just use a heatproof bowl and ideally cover it with something like cling film whilst cooking. Be careful when taking the cover off as the steam can easily burn.
A comprehensive list of the equipment used to make this recipe is included in the main recipe card below. Click on any item to see an example. There are no hard and fast rules so many items can be sensibly substituted to achieve the same results.
Get Ahead
Carrots are really easy to make ahead of time. I often cook them to 90% done earlier in the day and then bring them back to the boil and finish them off when close to plating up. They sit quite happily in their pan of water on the side.
You can get further ahead and keep them (drained) in an air tight container in the fridge for a couple of days. Then when you’re ready to serve, you can pick up the cooking process at whatever point you stopped it.
You can also mostly cook, drain and freeze the carrots. This can be handy to throw the frozen carrots straight into boiling water and they’ll thaw and finish cooking in a couple of minutes.
Leftover Boiled Carrots
Leftovers an also be stored in the fridge or freezer. As they’ll have their buttery glaze by this point, it is best to reheat them differently. They will actually microwave very successfully. Start by giving them a couple of minutes and then keep going in 30 second increments until they’re piping hot.
You can also reheat in a shallow pan over a gentle heat. You don’t want to use a high heat or leave the pan to it’s own devices for too long or you will end up with browned butter which can become bitter. Saying this, a little brown on the butter can be very tasty so this can be an option if you choose.
Simple Buttered Carrot Batons Tips
If you don’t want to cut the carrots into batons, you can cut rounds/slices. I like to do this on an angle so that they each have a nice big surface area. Thicker slices will take longer to cook than thinner ones so you can choose your own adventure.
I like my carrots to be soft all the way through – I’m not into “al dente” vegetables for this sort of recipe. But if you do prefer some more crunch to your carrots, you can just boil them for less time. The best way of telling if they’re cooked to your liking is just to try one.
Don’t forget to let me know in the comments if you try making this recipe – I want to know what you think and if you made any substitutions, how did it turn out?
Still Have Questions?
Simple! Just contact me and I will do my best to help as quickly as I am able. Head over to my Contact Me page, any of my social media channels or post a comment at the bottom of this page and I’ll see what I can do.
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More Carrot Recipes
The Recipe
Simple Buttered Carrot Batons Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 600 g Carrots
- 1 tbsp Fine Salt
- 1 tbsp Salted Butter - plus extra to garnish
- ½ tsp Sea Salt Flakes
Instructions
- Put a kettle of water on to boil.
- Start preparing roughly 600g Carrots by peeling them – I prefer to use a speed peeler – the Y shaped ones.
- Top and tail the carrots.
- How you actually cut the carrots will depend on how exactly how big they are. I've used chunky long carrots so I start by cutting them in half to make shorter pieces that are easier to work with. Then cutting slices around 1cm thick.
- Cut each of the slices into batons/sticks. I've kept them quite chunky but you can cut smaller pieces if you want them to cook quicker.
- Repeat until all of the carrots are cut.
- Put the carrot batons into a saucepan and cover generously with boiling water. Add 1 tbsp Fine Salt.
- Bring the water to a boil over a high heat then turn the heat down so its boiling gently. Adding a lid will speed this up. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes or until the carrots are tender.
- Drain the water from the pan and let the carrots sit and steam dry for a couple of minutes.
- Add 1 tbsp Salted Butter and ½ tsp Sea Salt Flakes to the pan and gently toss the carrots to melt it. You are looking for all the carrots to be nicely coated in the melted butter.
- Serve hot with an extra pat of butter if you wish.
Alison says
Simple but perfect. Really informative post.
Hayley says
These were so tasty. I think the secret must be not over cooking them because they were full of flavour.
Lesley says
You really can’t beat a buttered carrot, simple and tasty. I added a little honey to the mix.