Ever have a time in your life where you didn’t like vegetables and had to be made to eat them? After you’ve tasted our Cracker Barrel carrots recipe, you’ll be left wondering what all the fuss was about. In this article we are going to look at how to make cracker barrel carrots, and give you some tips and tricks to make sure that they taste just as good as the real thing.
How To Make Cracker Barrel Baby Carrots
Carrots have a natural inherent sweetness and actually already contain a little sugar. This cracker barrel carrot recipe aims to really bring out all of these flavors. We do use a little sugar and butter in this recipe, but carrots are low enough in calories that this recipe isn’t too harsh on the waistline, which is a good thing as you are probably going to want to have more than one portion.
This recipe is a great side dish. You can serve it with almost anything. Our favorite is with roasted chicken, but it will act as the ideal accompaniment to almost any meat or even fish!
This cracker barrel carrots recipe is actually really simple. You don’t need any advanced kitchen equipment. A pan, and a spoon. That’s it!
Cracker Barrel Baby Carrots
Course: SidesCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy8
servings10
minutes40
minutes70
kcalOne of my favorite side dishes has to be these Cracker Barrel baby carrots that compliment any meal. Just make sure not to overcook them.
Ingredients
1 whole bag of fresh baby carrots (peeled or unpeeled, your choice)
1 oz 1 salted butter
2 teaspoons 2 of brown sugar
A generous pinch of salt
A pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
Directions
- Take your carrots and give them a rinse in a colander. Remove the green stalks and ends. If there is any dirt use a scrubbing brush to make them squeaky clean.
- Add the carrots to a suitably sized saucepan. Add enough water to ensure that they are completely submerged and then place on a high heat. Once the water is boiling reduce to a simmer.
- Cook the carrots in the water for around 30 minutes or until you can just ease a fork into them. Using a colander or sieve, drain the carrots retaining about half of the cooking liquid. Add the carrots back to the pan.
- Add your butter, sugar and the salt and return to a low to medium heat. Cook for a further 5-15 minutes. Your carrots are ready when they offer the slightest bit of resistance when you push a fork into them. Remember, don’t overcook them.
- Serve the carrots in a large bowl then grate or sprinkle the nutmeg over the top.
- Serve and enjoy.
Notes
- If you don’t have baby carrots, it isn’t a deal breaker. Normal carrots will fit the bill. But in order to ensure that your carrots cook to perfection you will need to ensure that you cut them to roughly the same size as baby carrots.
- For a rustic look feel free to leave the skin on the carrots. It’s what we normally do. Just make sure that the carrots are free of any dirt. This is best achieved by giving them a rinse and a quick scrub prior to cooking
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Tips and Tricks
We realize that you might not always have everything you need, or you want to make these tasty carrots extra special. Take a look our tips and tricks for all you need to know.
- If you don’t have brown sugar, don’t worry. You can use white sugar to supplement the sweetness of the carrots, but you won’t get that slightly ‘caramel’ taste. Other alternatives you can try are sugar syrup, honey, or if you want to try something completely different, maple syrup.
- We realize that not everyone has butter. If you don’t have butter or just prefer margarine then you can use this instead. Just replace the butter with an equal amount of margarine.
- We use a little nutmeg to really compliment the flavors in our cracker barrel carrots recipe. However, carrots can be a little bland without any flavor at all. If you don’t have nutmeg feel free to try other things. If you are looking to spice it up a bit you could also add a pinch of cayenne pepper. Carrots go wonderfully with mint too. A teaspoon of mint jelly or a bunch of fresh mint finely chopped can also take carrots to a whole new level.
- Don’t overcook your carrots. This is easier said than done. If you underdo them then they will taste raw and a crunchy. If you over cook your carrots you are going to end up with weak tasting mush. For that reason, we suggest you keep a good eye on the clock and manage the temperature as the recipe suggests in order to achieve optimum results.
- If you haven’t got measuring scales then we’ve got you covered. One pound of carrots is roughly ten medium sized carrots. If you keep this in mind you can scale our recipe from there.
- You can easily scale this recipe. If you are cooking for twice as many people, just double all of the ingredients (oh and use a bigger pan)
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Conclusion
We love cracker barrel carrots. Any time we are cooking a large dinner, you’ll find them on my table. The best bit about serving them in a large bowl is that everyone can dig in and help themselves. But be warned, if you are being polite and letting your guests serve themselves first then there might not be too many for the people serving themselves at the end!
The key to this recipe is making sure the carrots aren’t over cooked. Remember you can always put them bag on the heat for longer, but there is no way (that we know of at least) to uncook a carrot. If you have enjoyed our recipe or have any ‘secret’ additions, feel free to let us know about it in the comments below.
