The trick to browner roasted vegetables that are anything but limp isn't a secret ingredient or special tool—it's time.
In Sarah's recent piece about the Maillard reaction (a.k.a. that scientific thing responsible for a good sear on a steak, crispy edges of roasted potatoes, and brown edges of fried eggs), she shared a tip from Serious Eats's J. Kenji López-Alt that was so simple yet so helpful, we didn't want you to miss it.
It starts with the fact that high heat + dryer ingredients = better chance of caramelly, browned bits. And it's employed on a cooking technique where caramel-crisp is what we're going for—roasting vegetables:
...Kenji recommends you leave cut vegetables uncovered in the refrigerator overnight; by drying them out, you're ensuring that they'll brown nicely when you roast them the next day.
That photo above doesn't lie! Leaving cut vegetables uncovered in the fridge overnight is an extra step that involves a little additional planning, but it will give you exactly what you were going for when you decided to slip some vegetables into the hot oven.
Now if only you had a recipe or two to try this trick out on...
What other tips to you have for perfectly roasty, toasty vegetables? Let us know in the comments!
Whether you're in the mood for some soup-simmering, leaf-peeping, or nothing at all, your dream weekend awaits...
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Written by: Ali Slagle
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