If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen my stories about adventuring through the new Trader Joes in New Orleans. I’m so excited to finally have a Trader Joes near by because they have so many “fun” foods and a decent amount of International ingredients at good prices. One ingredient that I spotted and had to try was harissa. I’ve seen harissa in recipes a lot lately and have been super curious about it because, well, you know how I love spicy chile sauces! So, I grabbed a jar, mixed up a super simple marinade with lemon, honey, and olive oil, and made a big batch of crispy Harissa Roasted Vegetables.
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How to Serve Harissa Roasted Vegetables
You can serve these smoky and spicy roasted vegetables as a side next to grilled meat or fish, or slap an egg on top (as I always do) and make a meal out of it. I also served my Harissa Roasted Vegetables with Cumin Rice, which made a nice earthy base for all those harissa flavors to pop! Love it!
Harissa Roasted Vegetables
Servings 6 1 cup eachIngredients
HARISSA MARINADE
- 1/4 cup harissa (paste) ($1.20)
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.22)
- 1/2 Tbsp honey ($0.14)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice ($0.07)
VEGETABLE MEDLEY
- 6 small red potatoes (1-1.5 lbs.) ($1.17)
- 1 broccoli crown ( $1.30)
- 3 carrots ($0.40)
- 1 small red onion ($1.07)
- Handful chopped fresh cilantro ( $0.20)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Prepare a large baking sheet by lightly spritzing with non-stick spray or covering with foil.
- In a small dish, stir together the harissa, olive oil, honey, salt, and lemon juice. Set the marinade aside.
- Wash the potatoes well and cut into one-inch cubes. Wash and peel the carrots, then slice into one-inch sections. Cut the broccoli into florets, and chop the onion into large sections. Place the potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and onion on the prepared baking sheet.
- Pour the harissa marinade over the vegetables and use your hands to toss the vegetables until they are evenly coated in the marinade.
- Roast the vegetables in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, stir, and then continue roasting for another 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and the edges have achieved a nice deep brown color. Top with chopped cilantro just before serving.
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Shown with Cumin Rice
How to Make Harissa Roasted Vegetables – Step by Step Photos
This is the harissa that I used. It comes in a small jar, but is pretty strong so you don’t need to use a lot at once.
And this is what it looks like inside, close up. You can see it’s a very thick, slightly oil chile paste. Too thick to really use as a marinade, so I mixed in a few extra ingredients.
To make the marinade, I combined 1/4 cup of harissa with 2 Tbsp olive oil, 1 Tbsp lemon juice, 1/2 Tbsp honey, and 1/2 tsp salt. The oil helps thin it out and the lemon and honey help dampen the heat just slightly. The honey also helps caramelize the vegetables and, which gives them a really nice deep flavor.
Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Prepare a large baking sheet with a light coating of non-stick spray, or cover it with foil. Wash and cube 6 small red potatoes (about 1-1.5 lbs.). Wash and peel 3 carrots, then slice into one-inch segments. Cut one crown of broccoli into florets, and cut one small red onion into large chunks. Place all the prepared vegetables on the baking sheet.
Pour the harissa marinade over the vegetables, then use your hands to toss the vegetables until they are all evenly coated. Make sure the broccoli florets get well coated, as those tend to dry out before the other vegetables.
Roast the vegetables in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, give them a good stir, and then roast for an additional 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and are nicely browned on the edges. Top with a handful of chopped cilantro and eat!
The subtle sweetness that the vegetables acquire through roasting is the perfect balance for the heat of the harissa. I couldn’t stop eating these right off the baking sheet!
Haven’t made this but wanted to suggest trying toasted sweet potatoes with Harrissa powder. Put in a pita with dill marinated cucumbers, avocado and taziki (sp) sauce. Was surprisingly delicious. Even hubby liked.
Happy to hear it Linda!
OMG! This is hot! I like spicy food. I love Beth’s Szechuan pork and green beans with chili paste, and Dragon Noodles, so I thought this would be awesome. But, its way up the Scoville scale for me. I’ll use more honey and less harissa next time. I dont usually have beer in the house, but fortunately I had a chocolate stout in the fridge to quench the fire in my mouth. Also, it was a bitterly cold day and I was quite warm after eating my veggies.
I couldn’t find harrissa paste so I used an Indian curry sauce. I would like to try this with harrissa paste and see how it goes. It was alright. I thought it was a little bland but my husband loved it. In the future I might tweak it a little bit to fit my liking. My broccoli browned nicely but the other vegetables not so much.
I’m trying to incorporate more meatless meals into my diet to cut down on costs (as well as curb my environmental impact a little), so I was looking forward to trying this one, since it looks quite hearty. (IT WAS.)
I wasn’t expecting the heat of the harissa paste to be as strong as it was, though admittedly I’m a little sensitive to spicy food (I don’t go above a 2 or 3 at Thai restaurants).
However, this is delicious! I made it with the yellow jasmine rice, and tonight I ate it for dinner with mango Noosa. Eating it with yogurt helped with the heat, obviously, and the mango went surprisingly well with the meal.
Tasty!! Fyi, Whole Foods also has harissa. I bought this jar: http://www.igourmet.com/images/topics/harissa.jpg, but there were others as well.
This is colorful and looks so delicious and healthy! I will be making these veggies over the weekend, I’m really excited! Thank you for sharing Beth :)
Too hot for our family! I could only find a tube of harissa paste from France and I’m guessing it was somewhat different than TJ’s. I used about 1/6 cup and would cut it back significantly next time.
I was disappointed by these. For harissa veggies, these were way blander than what I was expecting. I think it’s more of a matter of personal taste than anything, but I was expecting more of a flavor punch. The marinade itself tasted good, but it was stretched thin trying to cover so many veggies. I’ll be sure to make harissa roasted vegetables again, just with fewer vegetables.
Ooooh! This looks like it will make an excellent freezer bowl, too!