This roasted vegetable salad is such a interesting and delicious vegetable dish to have in your repertoire. Served at room temperature, this is a wonderful make-ahead side. Or its also hearty enough to be a stand-alone meal. Grab a selection of your favourite roasting vegetables, add a few cloves of garlic, some fresh herbs and a splash of balsamic vinegar. You’ve got yourself an incredibly delicious meal! Each time I make this dish its just a little bit different. And thats the beauty of a salad like this – its completely versatile to suit the season, a craving or to match whatever you are serving it with. Perfection!

I’ve come over all vegetarian lately. Not so much when it comes to eating – I’m still devouring meat and fish in my usual fashion – but my mind seems to be filled with delicious vegetarian recipe ideas. So I’m going to run with it. My carnivorous readers need not worry. I am working on something amazing with lamb that will make an appearance on the blog in the next few weeks. But for now, its all about the veggies.

This gorgeous roasted vegetable salad is another firm family favourite. I think it was my older sister who first introduced it to us. Or maybe it was Mum? But either way, whoever takes the credit, this is a regular feature at our table. Perfectly roasted vegetables, all caramelised around the edges and soft in the middle, flavoured with herbs, garlic and a splash of vinegar to add some acidity.

Its such a versatile dish too. Quite literally, you can make it with whatever you’ve got lying around. This version I made to take to a foodie friends barbecue, so used baby carrots and a number of different vegetables to make it a little interesting. But its just as good with just a few spuds, a bit of onion and a couple of carrots.

In my family, we all have a slightly different version of this roasted vegetable salad. Mum likes to drizzle the vegetables with French dressing as soon as they come out of the oven. My little sister likes to stir basil pesto or sweet chilli sauce through the hot vegetables. And my older sister jazzes hers up with turmeric, chilli flakes and cook it using a flavour infused oil such as garlic or chilli oil.

I like to use a little maple syrup on the salad before putting it in the oven. And then add a dash of balsamic vinegar in the last few minutes of cooking. Plus I can’t resist topping the roasted vegetables with feta when I serve them. Whatever your choice, you really can’t go wrong with this dish.

I hope your family will love it as much as we all do.

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Roasted vegetable salad

Prep time:  10 mins

Cook time:  50 mins

Total time:  1 hour

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

• 2 potatoes
• ¼ pumpkin
• 2 sweet potatoes (kumara)
• 2 parsnip
• 8 cloves garlic
• ½ head broccoli
• 6-8 field mushrooms
• 1 red onion
• 250g baby carrots
• 4 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• ½ tsp dried thyme
• ½ tsp dried oregano
• 2 tsp maple syrup
• 2 tbsp oil
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 100g feta

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C Fan Bake.
2. Prep two large sheet pans by lining them with a layer of foil then a layer of greaseproof or parchment paper.
3. Wash and scrub the potatoes and kumara if necessary.
4. Cut the potato, kumara and parsnip into approximately 1 inch sized pieces. Try to get the pieces roughly the same size to ensure even cooking.
5. Remove the skin from the pumpkin and cut into 1 inch sized pieces as well.
6. Peel the garlic cloves, leaving them whole.
7. Scatter the potato, kumara, parsnip, pumpkin and garlic in a single layer onto one of the sheet pans. Lay two sprigs of rosemary over the top.
8. Drizzle with 1 tbsp of oil, 1 tsp of maple syrup and sprinkle over the smoked paprika and dried thyme. Season well with salt and pepper.
9. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes before adding the other vegetables.
10. While the root vegetables are roasting, scrub the baby carrots, cut the broccoli into 1 inch florets, cut the mushrooms into quarters and peel and cut the onion into 8 pieces.
11. Lay the carrots, broccoli, mushroom and onion in a single layer onto the other sheet pan. Lay the remaining 2 sprigs of rosemary over the top.
12. Drizzle over the remaining 1 tbsp of oil, tsp of maple syrup and sprinkle over the fennel seeds and dried oregano. Season well with salt and pepper.
13. Add this second tray of vegetables to the oven and roast with the root vegetables for another 20 minutes, or until all the vegetables are nicely caramelised and cooked through.
14. Once the vegetables are cooked, open the oven door and sprinkle the balsamic vinegar over the tray of root vegetables. Close the oven and cook for a further 2 - 3 minutes.
15. Remove both trays from the oven and allow to cool.
16. To serve, remove the rosemary stalks and then combine the two trays of vegetables onto a serving platter or bowl. Crumble the feta over the top.

Notes

For this quantity of vegetables its best to use two oven trays if possible to ensure even cooking and better caramelisation. By all means if you're making a smaller quantity of this salad one tray will suffice - simply roast the root vegetables for 20 minutes first, then add the other vegetables to the same tray in the oven and cook all together.

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