Sometimes it’s hard to come up with ideas for sides. When it comes to delicious spring vegetables though, I’ve found it pays to listen to the greats like Alice Waters – an advocate of the Simple Food movement. She suggests letting the rich tastes of spring vegetables shine right through, with very few added ingredients, so you can savor them in all their seasonal splendor.
The other night, me, the kids and the hubby were having guests over for steaks and my world-famous Grilled Pork Skewers with Peaches and Cucumber Sauce (and may I just say, YUM!) and I was yearning for a side dish worthy of these two delicious grilled mains. I wanted to do something unexpected … something beyond just the tired, old standby of corn on the cob.
Then, Chris, my husband, reminded me about the vegetables we’d just bought at the farmers market, including some huge white button mushrooms and the spring’s biggest asparagus stalks I’d seen yet, with those thick stalks that you cannot wait to bite into. I have to literally remind myself you have to cook asparagus to keep from diving right into it sometimes, and I thought, of course! I’ll make this easy roasted dish while they’re busy grilling and have everything all done at once!
So I decided on my Roasted Asparagus with Mushrooms. And it turned out to be the perfect complement to those savory, grilled meats.
Asparagus and Mushrooms an Elegant but Simple Side
Roasted Asparagus and Mushrooms may be a fast fix of a side but this delicious dish tastes and looks like something you’d have at a five-star restaurant – heck, even a Michelin-starred restaurant! You can’t get more elegant-looking than these simple, sautéed asparagus spears and roasted mushrooms when plated.
Plus, the flavor is phenomenal. What I love about cooking with mushrooms is that they add not just that unexpected elegance to dishes of all sorts, but they bring a ton of rich, almost meat-like flavor with them as well. Mushrooms yield a rich, brothy, umami flavor to whatever dish you add them to, whether it’s eggs, beans, veggies, a risotto, or a stew. They are kind of like lentils in that when cooked, mushrooms release a liquid much like those flavor-packed little lentils do that is simply delicious and infuses all dishes it graces.
I love this side because that rich, umami flavor unique to mushrooms so complements the creamy, green, almost sweet flavor of this much-beloved spring vegetable that it creates a real complementary contrast of flavors that has a wonderful mouthfeel as well.
Why Roasting Asparagus Makes it Phenomenal
What roasting does for asparagus and mushrooms is to caramelize the delicious starches and sugars in these vegetables, making them taste wonderfully glazed with flavor.
As mushrooms roast, they become all sauteed-looking from the oil or butter you’re roasting them in and the process intensely concentrates their rich, savory flavors, yielding a delicious contrast to your roasted green asparagus.
But before you roast, bake, or steam your asparagus, you must trim or bend it. If you already know this step, skip down a paragraph.
Why do you have to cut the bottoms of asparagus off? Well, they are the tougher parts of asparagus that don’t get tender with cooking. That’s because this part of asparagus is the root end that grows underground and although it’s probably loaded with nutrition because of that reason, it’s unusually toughened by the time it’s harvested.
So for perfect asparagus, either bend that spear and let it tell you where it wants to break (look for it to be somewhere about three-quarters of the way down from the top), or pare it, just enough to expose the flesh that will get tender when roasted.
How to Make Ahead and Store?
Refrigerating or freezing a baked asparagus with butter and mushrooms is not going to give you a dish that’s very good tasting for the second serve.
It’s simply not going to keep that well. Butter separates in the fridge and freezer and olive oil, predictably, doesn’t like frozen water.
Serving Suggestions
This amazing side isn’t just for the hardier meats. It would be lovely with chicken, especially my Slow Cooker Whole Roasted Chicken or my Healthy Oven-Fried Chicken with a nice, crispy side dish like my Easy Potato Wedges. They’re my crispiest potato wedges and your family will adore them, promise! For a great dessert to follow all this deliciousness, how about a super-easy but amazingly delicious Strawberry Cheesecake. It is simply divine.
Roasted Asparagus and Mushrooms
Ingredients
- 1 pound asparagus trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
- 3/4 pound mushrooms sliced
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 F.
- Rinse the asparagus and mushrooms, then trim the asparagus by removing the tough ends. Cut the asparagus into 2-inch pieces.
- Place the asparagus and mushrooms on a baking sheet.
- In a small bowl, mix together the olive oil, minced garlic, salt, and black pepper.
- Pour the olive oil mixture over the vegetables on the baking sheet and toss to ensure they are evenly coated.
- Roast in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and have a light golden color.
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