Roasted Asparagus with Garlic, Salt & Pepper, Parmesan Cheese with Melted butter drizzled over. This side dish takes 12–15 minutes to cook and is done almost the same way as Roasted Broccoli. In fact, you can include the Asparagus with Roasted Broccoli halfway through cooking for a Roasted Broccoli & Asparagus side dish.
How to pick out Asparagus
Look for Asparagus that can stand up on their own with no limping or wilting. The tips should be dry, closed, and compact with purple highlights.
They should be a rich green in color and firm. Wrinkles in the stem indicate that they are old.
Try to pick out Asparagus that is roughly the same size and thickness for uniform cooking. Thinner ones are more tender and sweet. Whereas thicker ones are meatier with a stronger asparagus taste.
How to Store Asparagus
Store them in a glass or jar with just about 1/2 inch of water. The water should just cover the woody part of the stem, which will be snapped away when you decide to cook them.
These are vegetables that I usually pick up as I need them.
Prepping Roasted Asparagus
Wash well and pat dry. Hold the bottom end and snap it. It will naturally snap at the correct place so that you don’t include the woody stem. Which isn’t very appetizing.
Set these aside until you have the Garlic, Bacon fat or Oil, Salt & Pepper in a sheet pan or roasting pan. Then add them in and toss.
Asparagus
Roasted Garlic
What you are really after is nicely roasted, crispy bits of garlic. To get better results on this, toss the asparagus around while cooking so that the bits of garlic come into contact with the oil and roast up nicely.
Roughly chop the garlic, about 6 or more cloves. You don’t want the garlic too small, as this will burn and give a bitter taste.
Oil
Use a neutral or extra virgin olive oil, sometimes with a bit of bacon fat included or all bacon fat, which works really well both with roasted Asparagus & Roasted Broccoli.
Melted Butter or JAH Garlic Sauce can be made up and used to drizzle over the Roasted Asparagus after they have cooked to add extra Buttery & Garlicky Flavors.
Seasoning
Nothing more than Kosher Salt or Sea Salt & Black Pepper. Optionally you could add in Red Pepper Flakes or some White Pepper or use the Salt & Pepper Ratio in my Salt & Pepper Chicken which includes white pepper as well.
Salt & Pepper
- 1 Tbl Sea Salt
- 1 tsp Black Pepper
- 1/2 tsp White Pepper
Garnishing
Optionally garnish the Roasted Asparagus with Freshly Shredded Parmesan Cheese & Aleppo Flakes or Chili Flakes. For a more zesty version, squeeze some lemon juice over the Asparagus.
Toasted sesame seeds are also a very nice garnishing.
Equipment
- Sheet Pan or Roasting Pan
Ingredients
- 1 bunch Asparagus
- 5-8 Cloves Garlic - roughly chopped
- 1/4 tsp Kosher Salt
- 1/8 tsp Black Pepper
- 2 Tbl Melted Bacon Fat - or Oil
- Melted Butter - or JAH Garlic Sauce
- Parmesan Cheese - as desired
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 F.Roughly Chop the Garlic and combine it with the remaining ingredients within a sheet pan or roasting pan. Toss well to ensure the Asparagus gets completely coated.
- Place it into the oven in the middle rack position. Toss halfway through.
- Asparagus is done in about 12–15 minutes. Drizzle melted butter or JAH Garlic Butter Oil over top and Garnish with Fresh Parmesan, optionally some Aleppo Peppers.