Cheesy Carrot Rutabaga Casserole
Cubed carrots & rutabagas flavored with garlic & cheese make this Cheesy Carrot Rutabaga Casserole tasty and healthy. A perfect holiday side.
This recipe is based on a dish from McCall’s Cooking School. My mother enhanced the original with garlic and Parmesan cheese—everything’s better with garlic and Parmesan, right? It is now a holiday favorite, enjoyed even by carrot haters!
Despite its fond place in our hearts, I had never made the dish, intimidated by chopping up the rutabaga—aren’t they supposed to be tough? Recently, friends from Rare Earth Farm, one of my CSAs gave me extra carrots and a couple rutabagas that had made it through the winter. It was fate.
If you try to eat local in Wisconsin, early spring is a challenge. My fresh stores were down to a few carrots, a bag of beets and some graying cabbages! In the end, cutting the rutabaga wasn’t difficult at all–don’t know if that if it had softened with age or if I was needlessly worried! And with two veggies in the casserole, a big helping can equal (a delicious!) two servings of our five-a-day.
With Mother’s Day coming, wouldn’t a ring with orange and golden cubes, enrobed in cheese and garlic be a beautiful addition to the table?
Cheesy Carrot and Rutabaga Ring
Ingredients
- 1 rutabaga, cubed (a scant 4 cups of 1/3” cubes—make up with extra carrots if short)
- 1 t salt
- 2 lb carrots, cubed (a scant 4 cups of 1/3” cubes)
- 1/8 t pepper
- 1/4 c butter or margarine, melted
- 1/2 c Parmesan cheese or vegan cheese
- 1 T Garlic powder
- 1/4 c chopped fresh parsley (or 2 T dried)
- Additional parsley for garnish (optional)
Directions
1. Boil carrot and rutabaga cubes 15-20 minutes until tender.
2. Drain veggies and heat in saucepan to evaporate excess water.
3. Add salt, pepper, Parmesan, garlic, parsley Toss to combine and adjust seasonings to taste.
4. Pack into greased ring mold. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 15 minutes at 400.
To unmold, set a plate on top of the ring, then flip plate and mold over as a unit. Remove ring. (Not as hard as it sounds.) Place additional parsley in center of ring as garnish (optional).
Enjoy!
Inger, I cooked the Cheesy Carrot Rutabaga Ring dish and the family loved it except for the two-year-old, who refused a bite of the rutabaga. :). It was a colorful dish. Tasty. My daughter said she has viewed your blog, after I told her about it. You have a very nice blog.
So glad you enjoyed! It’s a classic family dinner dish in our family–not sure what age my kids stopped refusing to try it!
I’ve just lost my comment – arrgghh!
anyway, I love carrots and swede, a lovely combination! But putting it all in a rinng with garlic and parmsean sounds even better. I’m going to bookmark it fo rnext winter and hopefully persuade my OH that swede is delcious! Thank you 🙂
Ah yes, many root vegetables seem to invite suspicion. My kids still eye this nervously–despite having enjoyed it before 😉
Ahhhh, kids of all ages !!
Yum! I just received some carrots in my CSA box today. Looking forward to giving this recipe a try! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I would love for you to link up to my CSA link party. Check it out http://inherchucks.com/2012/04/19/whats-in-the-box-22/. Hope to see you there!
Thanks. I’ll definitely check out your blog–always interested in what others are doing with their CSA food.
What an awesomesavoury cake style meal – it looks delicious 😀
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
This is the type of food I label “brave”… But i’m sure they’re awesome with some of that meat!
What a great looking ring! And, made of rutabaga. Genius.
When we remodeled our kitchen we were eating rutabaga sticks dipped in hummus–who would have thought?!
it’s a rare and special day when i see a rutabaga recipe! this is amazing!
A truly under-appreciated vegetable!
Awesome. Now I need to see if I have an old bundt pan around here somewhere. The color is beautiful.
The ring I used is an old jello mold that I appropriated from my mother. Blogging does seem to encourage use of a wider range of cooking tools!
Lovely! I plan to try this. We have some dear friends we met in the military who introduced us to rutabagas. We now live several states apart, but keep in touch. There’s a standing joke between us about rutabagas.This will be a delightful dish, I’m sure.
Thanks Freeda. And I love the idea I might contribute to a standing joke!