Mint Glazed Carrots

Carrots are a favourite vegetable of mine.  I eat them several times a week, usually cooked and served plain or with a little butter or raw in a salad.  But sometimes carrots need to be dressed up for special meals.  I've already posted a Glazed Carrot recipe which uses honey or brown sugar and is a family favourite and the one I usually make for more festive meals.  This recipe is also for glazed carrots but uses mint jelly for the glaze (and butter, of course). 

Aunt Joan makes these and served them often when family came for dinner.  She told me they were easy to make and with only 3 main ingredients they are super easy and delicious as well.  They can be made with regular cooking carrots or bagged baby carrots but today I have a bag of coloured carrots--orange, yellow, green and purple--which makes not only a tasty dish but a colourful one as well.  But as you can see from the pictures I didn't use the purple carrots because they bleed and make a rather dark purple sauce which would have made a nasty coloured sauce on the carrots.  I cooked them separately and we ate them at another meal.

This recipe is particularly nice if you don't have access to fresh mint or if a bunch of the stuff is more expensive than the carrots.  Mint jelly will keep for ages in the fridge so you don't have to use it all up at one time like you would the fresh mint.  Most brands of mint jelly are bright green in colour but if you are able to purchase a more natural brand the colour will be an olive green. The President's Choice brand is very nice and vinegary and has only natural ingredients.  I used both the bright green and the PC brand as I thought the blended flavours were nice. 


Minted Glazed Carrots
2-3 pounds carrots
¼ cup butter
¼ cup mint jelly
1 teaspoon chopped fresh mint or parsley for garnish, optional

Peel and cut carrots into slices or sticks. (Or use bagged baby carrots.)  Cook in lightly salted water until tender crisp.  Drain well in strainer.  Place back in pot and shake gently over burner until any water has been evaporated.  Place back in drainer and set aside while making the glaze.

Melt the butter and mint jelly together in the cooking pot over medium heat.  Cook until bubbly and slightly reduced.  Lower the heat and add the cooked carrots tossing gently to coat and reheat. 

Spoon the glazed carrots into a serving dish and sprinkle with the chopped mint or parsley, if using, just before serving.  Makes 6-8 servings.

What pretty carrots!  Yellow, orange, purple and green.  They taste and cook like regular orange carrots.

Here they are sliced and ready for the pot.  I removed the purple carrots and cooked them separately because they "bleed" during cooking and make everything a nasty grey colour.  But cooked on their own they make a nice side dish by themselves.

Here are the two kinds of mint jelly.  On the left you can see the bright, almost neon green jelly and on the right a more natural-ingredient jelly.  The bright green jelly is quite plain with only a mild sweet mint flavour.  The natural-ingredient jelly has all kinds of flavours going on.  It's the President's Choice brand and has a long list of ingredients including vinegar, thyme,watermelon rind and dried mint leaves. It is quite tasty.

To make the glaze I used both kinds of jelly.  I thought the PC brand was quite good but probably overpowering on the carrots so that's why I mixed both kinds.  I'm sure you can figure out what you'd like to use.  The glaze is quite simple to make.  Melt equal parts of butter and jelly together and simmer until slightly thickened and reduced.

Here are the purple carrots with the glaze.  They were just as delicious as the lighter carrots.  You can see how dark the glaze becomes.  Don thought they were beets before he tasted them.

Pretty colours (minus the purple carrots), tasty carrots.