Roasted Broccoli & Tomatoes

before roasting

after roasting

Munch-munch-munch…The contrasting taste and texture of the crispy charred broccoli and sweet tomato nectar created from the oven roasting has me making this a weekly side-dish staple. It is not surprisingly easy to make but the only downside is that the oven can’t be used for anything else while the veggies are roasting.

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 2-3 crowns of broccoli*
• 10 oz grape tomatoes**
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Olive oil
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper

Equipment:

• a large mixing bowl
• 20″ roasting pans
• aluminum foil

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 450ºF.
2. Clean the vegetables (don’t need to dry) and cut the broccoli flowers into a bit smaller than bite size. Leave the tomatoes whole. Roughly chop the garlic cloves.***
3. Combine the broccoli, tomatoes, and garlic in a large mixing bowl. Pour a generous amount of olive oil and season them evenly with the salt and pepper, and then toss.
4. Spread over the aluminum foil lined pans.
5. Roast at 450F for 14-16 mins. Start watching the oven window after 14 mins.
6. When you see that different parts of the brocolli and tomato are charred, it is ready to remove from oven.

*Notes:

*You can add the stems if they came with it, but don’t use all of them.

**We prefer grape tomatoes due to their easier bite size, but feel free to use cherry tomatoes too if that’s what you prefer.

***In case you were tempted to halve the tomatoes, please don’t. This will make it lose much of the sweet/sour flavor.

****I gave a roasting time range as it may vary with the amount of ingredients that were actually used. Do not worry if you see some tomatoes that have started to burst open; it’s part of the flavor-enhancing process.