Roasted Beets and Carrots With Feta & Raw Honey
This colorful, delicious side dish is jam-packed with antioxidants, vitamins, and fiber to support your gut and keep your immune system strong! I love making this recipe for an easy, simple, throw-together-in-30-minutes type of mood. Also, just an added benefit, it gives your dining table a gorgeous pop of color!
The high fiber content of beets promotes healthy digestion by providing our gut with good bacteria. This means that beets, even in beetroot powder form, are supportive of our long-term gut health and should be added into our diets often. Similarly, carrots are full of vitamins, antioxidants, and fiber that supports both our digestive and immune system! For an added gut-health benefit, you can replace the roasted beets for pickled beets, which would add even more good bacteria for your gut microbiome (we love and welcome fermented foods here).
To roast the vegetables, I simply toss them in good quality extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, and ground black pepper. They roast in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 30-35 minutes until tender. It may sound plain, but truly the best way to roast vegetables in my opinion, is with nothing but good extra virgin olive and sea salt at the very least. There is no need to mess with the flavor of each vegetable — we should appreciate them for what they are!
Once the vegetables are done roasting, I like to drizzle a bit of raw honey on the bottom of my serving platter. This gives the vegetables a nice sweet glaze from the bottom up. Next, I’ll line up the carrots on the dish, add the beets around them and on top, sprinkle crumbled feta cheese, chopped fresh parsley, and extra raw honey over the whole thing. This is great as a side dish with any protein of your choice, or on top of a fresh bed of salad greens.
The reason I add raw honey here is for an additional boost for our gut microbiome. Raw honey is great for the well-being of our digestive system for multiple reasons: raw honey does not ferment in the stomach like most processed/refined sugars that can irritate the digestive tract, it is alkaline-forming (unlike processed honey which is acid-forming) so it helps fight inflammation, and raw honey contains both oligosaccharides & polyphenols that serve as prebiotics and protect good bacteria within the gut. You can find raw honey at local farmers markets or health food stores.
Roasted Beets & Carrots with Feta
Ingredients:
4-6 organic red and golden beets, peeled
5 large organic carrots, peeled
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp.
Fresh parsley, chopped
Raw Honey 1tbsp.
Feta cheese, ¼ cup
Sea salt (I love using this Celtic Sea Salt for its high mineral content)
Ground black pepper
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Rinse and dry whole carrots, and place onto a lined baking sheet.
Peel and chop the beets into large chunks, and add to a second lined baking sheet.
Drizzle olive oil over the vegetables, then sprinkle lightly with a pinch of sea salt and ground black pepper. Toss each one together until well combined.
Roast in the oven for 30-35 minutes. When done, let the vegetables slightly cool for 5 minutes.
Top with raw honey, feta, and chopped fresh parsley.