A carrot is a wonderful thing just as it is without any alteration, but roasting them sure has a way of teasing out their sweet side and making them extra delicious. We are big on roasted carrots in my household – we always seem to have the cheery orange root veg on hand anyway, they go with pretty much any meal, and we just can’t get enough of their caramelized sweetness. And these Honey Butter Roasted Carrots, with their sweet and buttery thyme-kissed coating, are one of our very favorite ways to prepare them.

Roasting carrots is simple – you toss them in some oil, sprinkle them with salt, and the oven does all the work of developing their sweetness – but sometimes you can add a few extra ingredients to really make the flavors pop. Here, the carrots are tossed in a mixture of honey, butter, and thyme before they head into the oven and the former plays up the sweetness that’s already there while the latter two provide an herby-buttery balance.

If you have very large carrots, you’ll want to cut them into halves or quarters, but small carrots can generally stay whole. Roasting will take between twenty-five and thirty-five minutes; you want to let them cook until they’re fork-tender and kissed with golden-brown color around the edges.

This is one of those examples where a cooking method just helps an ingredient along a little bit so it can really shine. I love a raw carrot… I love a basic roasted carrot, but I especially love the way this honey butter glaze brings out the carrot’s best qualities!