This Oven Roasted Vegetable Platter is the answer to some of the difficulties you may have encountered if you’ve ever tried to cook a large quantity of vegetables on the grill. I think everyone would agree that the perfect accompaniment to any type of meat or fish is a platter of grilled vegetables. Grilled vegetables are heavenly with their gorgeous sear marks and slightly charred smoky taste, but cooking a variety of vegetables on the grill can be very time consuming. You have to laboriously thread a zillion individual vegetable pieces onto skewers, or stand at the grill and flip that same number of vegetable pieces over for even cooking. It’s certainly worth the effort if you have the time but if you’re busy preparing other dishes, this might not be the most practical cooking method. Oven roasting is much easier. You can use smaller vegetables if you want (i.e. grape tomatoes), and cut them into more manageable, bite size pieces, and you won’t have to stand patiently over an outdoor grill or get your kitchen all smoked up using a stove top grill pan.
For this Oven Roasted Vegetable Platter I chose asparagus, mushrooms, red onion, bell peppers, and grape tomatoes (green, brown, purple, orange, yellow, and red) so that the variety of colors and contrast on the finished platter would be visually appealing. We taste with our eyes first and there is nothing that fires up the appetite more than vibrant, colorful food! You can use different vegetables if you prefer. Zucchini, eggplant, and potatoes would all work well in this recipe.
When prepping the red onion wedges be sure to separate the layers – this will speed up the cooking time. Unfortunately, some of the onions beautiful purple hues disappear during roasting but they still taste fantastic.
One by one, toss each type of vegetable with olive oil and then sprinkle with salt and pepper before transferring to a sheet pan. I use a shallow casserole dish for this so that the asparagus lays flat and can be easily coated with olive oil, but if you’re not using asparagus, a regular mixing bowl will work.
The day I tested this recipe I roasted the vegetables for about 14 minutes and they were all done at the same time, however, this may not always be the case. Depending on the type and size of vegetables you’re using, and how big you cut the pieces, the cooking time for each may vary slightly, so you’ll want to keep the vegetables separated on each sheet pan, as pictured. This will make it easy to remove any vegetables that are done sooner than others.
An Oven Roasted Vegetable Platter makes a great, healthy side dish for buffet style dining. The veggies taste good hot, cold, or at room temperature and any leftovers can be thrown into an omelet the next day or used as a pizza topping.
- 1 pound asparagus, trimmed
- 1 pound grape tomatoes, halved
- 12 ounces fresh button mushrooms, quartered
- 1 large orange bell pepper, seeded, ribs removed and cut into ½ inch strips
- 1 large yellow bell pepper, seeded, ribs removed and cut into ½ inch strips
- 1 large red onion, cut into 8 wedges and layers separated
- 6 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees and have two half sheets pans ready.
- Place the asparagus in a large shallow casserole dish, drizzle on 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper (about ⅛ teaspoon of each). Toss the asparagus in the dish until it is completely coated with olive oil and then transfer it to one of the baking sheets, placing it on the outer third of the pan. Repeat with remaining vegetables, putting 3 types of vegetables on each half sheet pan. Do not mix the vegetables together. Place two types of vegetables on the outer thirds of each pan and one in the middle.
- Roast on the bottom racks of the oven for 12-15 minutes until the vegetables are slightly tender but still have a little crispness to them. (Test with a toothpick.)
- Depending on the size and variety of your vegetables, some may be done a little earlier than others. If this happens simply remove the finished vegetable to the platter and continue roasting the remaining vegetables in one minute intervals until they reach the desired level of tenderness.
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Roasted veggies are the best! Whenever I a not sure how to cook a new-to-me veggie, I normally roast it and it always turns out delicious!
Yes, roasting is the best when it comes to veggies!
SO pretty! I love roasting up a big batch of vegetables to have for salad add-ins during the week. 🙂