Roasted Turnips with Turmeric, Garlic, & Lime
Sheet pan meal with roasted green beans, kielbasa, chorizo, and turmeric, garlic, lime roasted turnips
Barbara Mandrell once sang, “I was country when country wasn’t cool.” It’s an awesome song I grew up listening to, and I totally understand the spirit of the song with regards to sheet pan cooking.
Ladies & Gentlemen, I am here to tell you, I was sheet pan cooking when sheet pan cooking wasn’t cool. Or simply well before it became a trend.
Sheet pan cooking has become wildly popular because all the flavors of everything meld together, the cleanup is a breeze, and it’s really, really easy. And delicious. I always assumed I was just lazy with cooking and cleaning - I mean, it’s kinda like the one pot meal idea - but apparently, I was a trend setter and I just didn’t know it.
And the truth is, we sometimes forget that simple is really, really good. You don’t need some wild recipe to follow to have great flavor. You just need quality seasonings and good fresh ingredients.
In today’s share, we’re going to focus on the veggies, specifically turnips, which are what got spiced up in this sheet pan recipe.
In a super simple sheet pan bake, I put chorizo and kielbasa in the center of the pan - I always put the meat in the center so the juices can evenly disperse through other parts of the pan, and I put the veggies on the sides so they can soak up all the meat juices and become “seasoned” by them.
When we were in Maine this past weekend, we came across a gourmet market that highlighted local Maine products, one of which was a meat company that made chorizo. The kielbasa was for my son, who can be a picky eater at times. Some fresh green beans and turnips from our local CSA rounded out the meal on the sheet pan. The chorizo, with all its inherent spice and seasonings, would help “season” the veggies, especially the green beans (but a drizzle of olive oil and a few turns of the Kahuna Garlic Spice Blend are imperative on the beans). However, from experience, I knew the turnips would need a little more help. I love root veggies, but some need some flavor help, and turnips are one of them, in my humble opinion.
With minimal searching, I stumbled upon Andrea’s recipe from her blog Buttered Veg for Braised Baby Turnips & Greens with Turmeric, Garlic, & Lime. I didn’t have the greens, so I used what I had available and embellished: garlic, garlic scapes, some Kahuna Garlic Salt Spice Blend from The Spice & Tea Exchange, a lime, Origine’s Organic Turmeric, olive oil, some Himalayan pink salt, and pepper.
The turmeric adds a depth of flavor - a slight smokiness and earthiness - and as Andrea states, it also “adds a dimension of underlying complexity to the vegetal flavors, as well as a preventative healing effect.”
Andrea continues, “So this dish is packed with preventative medicinal properties. Alkalizing and detoxifying baby turnips, cooked with… anti-inflammatory turmeric, antibiotic garlic, and antibacterial lime juice—will supercharge any dinner menu.”
So get ready to supercharge your veggies!
You can obviously make this as a separate roasted dish, but if they’re on a sheet pan meal, make sure you time the cooking of the meat with the veggies so the meat doesn’t overcook. I typically will do sheet pan meals with sausages, chicken thighs, and thinner chicken breasts, but rarely beef, unless I know I can time it correctly with the thickness of the beef.
Roasted Turnips with Turmeric, Garlic, & Lime:
Ingredients:
5-6 small (baby) turnips - smaller ones will be less fibrous
1 large clove garlic
1/2 tsp Origines Organic Turmeric (see link below)
1 garlic scape (if you don’t have, just add another clove garlic)
1/2-1 whole lime
Olive oil
salt (Himalayan pink, preferred) & pepper to taste
The Spice & Tea Exchange Kahuna Garlic Salt Blend
Directions:
For ease of clean up, line your sheet pan with heavy duty tin foil, and lightly spray it with a non-stick cooking spray.
Cut baby turnips in smaller sized cubes for faster, even roasting, and put in medium sized bowl.
Chop up garlic scape and mince the garlic clove - if not using/don’t have garlic scapes, then mince another clove of garlic. Add this to turnips.
Drizzle with olive oil to coat, and squeeze 1/2 lime over all of it. Mix thoroughly to coat, You can add the whole lime if you want a more intense citrus note.
Sprinkle with turmeric, salt, and pepper, and a few turns of the salt blend. If you don’t have the blend, you could use garlic salt - the Blend is worth the investment, though, because of the added pizzazz. Mix everything thoroughly in bowl to coat.
Dump everything onto pan onto foil lined pan, and evenly spread turnips out.
Bake at 350F for 20-30 minutes until turnips are cooked through.
ENJOY!
Spice up your veggies with super food spices
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