Sage Maple Roasted Vegetables
Roasted fall vegetables with maple and sage are an easy side dish the family will love. Easy enough for any weeknight, and flavored with sage, maple syrup, and dijon mustard.
These sheet pan veggies are a perfect side dish for celebrating the amazing autumn harvest of vegetables that are in season right now. Roasting vegetables brings out their natural sweetness, and when drizzled with maple vinegar and maple syrup and sprinkled with some earthy sage, they turn into a slightly sweet – slightly savory treat that is crave-worthy.
This easy weeknight side dish is inspired by foods and flavors that were used in Native American cooking.
Maple Sage Roasted Autumn Vegetables
Fall roasted vegetables are such a great side dish to make! They go with so many recipes, they are largely hands off, and its easy to change it up based on which vegetables you have on hand.
In this recipe I used a sweet potato, an acorn squash, a turnip, mushrooms, and a yellow onion. But you could easily change out the yellow onion for a red onion, a butternut squash for the acorn squash (or any other kind of winter squash), and regular potatoes for the sweet potato.
These fall vegetables are flavored with maple vinegar and whole ground mustard. Maple Vinegar is similar to a good quality balsamic vinegar – its got the same sweet and acidic notes, with a buttery-carmaley flavor. If you can’t find maple vinegar in your store (you will need to go to a higher end store that carries different vinegars), you can substitute a good quality balsamic vinegar.
How to Prep Fall Roasted Vegetables Ahead
These roasted veggies are easy to prep ahead of time. Simple peel and dice the vegetables and store in an air-tight glass container in the fridge until ready to use.
How to Serve Sage and Maple Roasted Vegetables
These easy sheet pan veggies will be great alongside most main dishes, but they would be especially amazing in a Harvest Bowl with wojapi sauce .
How to make Sage Maple Fall Roasted Vegetables Kid-Friendly
Roasted veggies are magical and delicious to adults. But kids often struggle with them. The texture, the savory taste – sometimes they just don’t like them (We often reminisce about the time my now 6 year old was 3 and literally sobbed at the table when I served roasted carrots for dinner…).
These roasted vegetables are great because they cook up sweet and soft, yet don’t turn to total mush. They are awesome Thanksgiving roasted vegetables, but are great all year long, too!
Table Conversations with Kids about Sage and Maple Fall Roasted Vegetables
Dinner time should be more than directing every bite your kids take. Use this opportunity to bring in a more analytical way of thinking about and trying food by talking about a food’s colors, textures, smells and tastes:
- Talk about how all the ingredients used in this recipe are originally from here. Have you ever grown any of these in your garden?
- Talk about the textures of the vegetables – How does it feel in their mouth? Use words like smooth, velvety, thick, and soft. Compare the vegetables to each other – which one is the softest?
- Talk about the flavors of the vegetables – Can they tell the difference between the different ingredients? What about if they combine two or more together?
- Ask questions about what their favorite part of the fall roasted vegetables is – is there anything they would change about it for next time, or would they serve it differently?
Kids in the Kitchen: How Your Kids Can Help You Cook
Getting your kids in the kitchen is an amazing way to help them be more interested in trying new foods and confident in their own abilities. This recipe is perfect for beginner cooks because it is so easy!
This Maple Sage Roasted Vegetable recipe is great because it helps them be more familiar with vegetables and they get to practice measuring and tossing. And it is a great recipe for kids to experiment and become more comfortable with new flavors – which means they are more likely to eat it!
- Kids aged 1-3 can help you wash the vegetables and measure and mix the ingredients for the dressing.
- Kids aged 4-6 can do everything above, plus help you toss the diced vegetables in the olive oil and spices.
- Kids aged 7-10+ can help you do everything above, plus help you toss the roasted vegetables in the dressing.
*Please note that these recommendations are generalized, and to please use your personal discretion with your child’s skill level. And always, always supervise! Read more about how to have your children help you in the kitchen.
Other easy kid-friendly side dish recipes your family will love:
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Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 turnip
- 1 shallot
- 1 acorn squash
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 1 sweet potato
- 1 TBSP sunflower oil
- 2 teaspoons dried sage
- 2 TBSP maple syrup
- 2 TBSP maple vinegar
- 1 teaspoon whole grain mustard
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 F.
- Peel and dice the turnip, squash, mushrooms, and sweet potato into 1" pieces.
- Mince the shallot.
- Toss the turnip, shallots, squash and sweet potatoes with the sunflower oil and dried sage. Spread evenly on a rimmed baking sheet.
- Roast in the oven for 20 minutes.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, maple vinegar, and mustard.
- Add the mushrooms to the baking sheet and drizzle with teh dressing. Toss with a spatula and evenly spread out again.
- Roast an additional 7 minutes.
