Easy Vegan Glazed Carrots

I absolutely loved glazed carrots, and this easy vegan glazed carrots recipe is perfect and can be easily tweaked if you fancy it. Carrots coated in a sticky sweet and salty sauce, loaded up with garlic, and grilled until as caramelized as you wish, what’s not to like?

With just a handful of simple ingredients, you can zap your carrots in the microwave or steam them, and then add sauce ingredients and finish them off in a skillet under the grill to a lightly toasted perfection or dark caramelized goodness, the choice is yours.

This recipe was inspired by a lovely non-vegan version by Cafe Delites that I love. If you’re a fan of simple vegan sides you might also want to try my delicious Irish-style vegan stuffing, vegan sour cream or easy 15-minute vegan garlic bread.

Serve with:

This is a great simple vegan side dish and is perfect for serving with traditional Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Sunday roast style meals.

It also pairs amazingly well with Chinese and Japanese recipes, or can be enjoyed over some simple steamed rice with a tasty protein such as tofu.

How to make it:

Vegan glazed carrots are an absolute doddle to make and you can probably skip right ahead to the recipe card, but just in case you can find some photos here of the different steps. This will help you from going astray or if you’re unsure about any part of the process.

First, peel and chop your carrots. I peel them with a speed peeler and then cut them on an angle to about half an inch thick as you can see in the photos.

Then, partly cook your carrots. I recommend either steaming them or microwaving them – both ways are best suited as they are quick, easy, and retain a lot of the nutrients. But if you have a bit more time on hand you can also roast them.

Whichever method you employ, don’t fully cook the carrots – remember they’ll be on the stove for five minutes in the sauce and then under the grill for another few.

To microwave, pop into a bowl or microwave-safe container, add five tablespoons of water (one tablespoon per cup of carrots) and zap on high for 7-9 minutes. Alternatively, you can steam them for 5-7 minutes.

Test with a fork for doneness, they should be al-dente – the fork can pierce them but they retain a slight crunch. They may need more time if your microwave is not high-powered, just stick them back in and zap in two-minute increments, testing each time.

Remember, it’s better they are slightly underdone than overdone. Next, heat up a a skillet or some other oven-safe fairly shallow pan on high-heat. Drain off any residual water and add the sauce ingredients (the olive oil, brown sugar, garlic, salt, and optional cayenne if using).

The olive oil really makes the sauce tasty but if you’re serving the carrots alongside stuffing or potatoes etc. and don’t really need much sauce, or are watching your waistline, you can cut the olive oil to just enough to cover the carrots with sauce.

The garlic can be minced or crushed – if minced it will caramelise nicely, if crushed the sauce will be more garlicky, it’s up to you.

The cayenne pepper is optional and really depends on what you’re serving the carrots with but I love it (hey, I’m called the fiery vegetarian for a reason!). The residual heat from cooking the carrots should dissolve the sugar, just give it all a mix.

Add the carrots and sauce to the hot pan and cook for five minutes, stirring often until the last two minutes of cooking, when you should let them sit so the bottoms can caramelize and take on some color. Test to check the carrots are done enough to your liking, if not you can cook for longer.

Now transfer to a preheated grill (set the carrots about 3-4 inches away from the heat source) and grill on high heat for anywhere from between three to seven minutes or until done to your liking. Three minutes will be enough for the sauce to thicken slightly, seven should give you some lovely caramelized edges.

My kids prefer the carrots at three minutes and I prefer them at seven, or even more (the more caramelized the better!), so you do you.

Sprinkle some chopped fresh parsley over, serve and enjoy!

Storing leftovers

Leftovers can be stored tightly covered in the fridge for up to four days. You can either reheat in the microwave or under the grill.

I prefer to heat them up under the grill as you can win back some of those caramelized edges. If you do them in the microwaved heat them up uncovered to prevent them from steaming and overcooking, for about two minutes.

Make it ahead

If you’re preparing quite a few side dishes or are just way more organized than I usually am, you can certainly make this ahead.

Just follow all the recipe steps but stop before broiling your carrots under the grill. Then when you’re ready to serve, grill them. Grilling may take slightly longer than usual if the carrots have been in the fridge.

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