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This is the ultimate guide to Roasting Frozen Vegetables. This is the best resource for helping you make tasty and quick vegetable side dishes using all frozen veggies! Oven-roasted frozen vegetables are delicious and will save you so much time and money.
The day I realized that not only could you roast frozen veggies, but that they were absolutely delicious, well my life changed.
Using frozen veggies is the ultimate in convenient “fast food”. Someone else already did the washing and chopping. All you need to do is grab a sheet pan, pick some seasoning, and get ready to save a boatload of time and money.
What is the trick to roasting frozen vegetables?
There are four tricks to making frozen vegetables taste delicious:
- Do not thaw the frozen vegetables before roasting.
- Fully preheat the oven. It is so tempting to start cooking the veggies while the oven is preheating, but doing so will give you soft and mushy (smushy) vegetables instead of perfectly roasted veg.
- Preheat the pan. Place the sheet pan in the oven while the oven is preheating. A hot pan will give the frozen vegetables a jump start on the roasting process.
- Don’t crowd the pan! Give the veggies plenty of space to roast. Too much veg all smushed together will cause the water to steam instead of evaporating.
Steaming = mushy vegetables. Try using two or even three pans if you want to roast larger batches.
What Type of Pan is Best For Roasting vegetables?
The humble rimmed baking sheet is my go-to for roasting vegetables from frozen. With low sides, it keeps the vegetables in place while still allowing air to circulate around each piece.
I don’t recommend using parchment or foil on your baking sheets when roasting. I believe it prevents a great sear from happening and gives the veg too much opportunity to steam instead of roast. Of course, you can use them if you’d like, but you may need to add a few minutes of cooking time.
Pro tip: if your roasting pan has any stuck-on food, save your time and don’t bother scrubbing it. Add some water to the empty pan and pop it back into the warm oven for 10 minutes. The food will come right off of it when rinsed. Then clean with soap as normal; easy peasy!
If you want to make a smaller batch, want to save on dishes, and love a little extra sear on your veggies, then using a cast iron skillet is the way to go.
How to Season Roasted Vegetables
Most veggies simply need a fat (olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, or ghee) and a good pinch of kosher salt for the best roasting results. Typically, I use 2 tablespoons of olive oil per pan of veg.
Typically I only add salt and other dry seasonings at the very end of the roasting process. Salting veggies while they cook can cause them to release too much moisture too fast, resulting in a soggy mess.
But from time to time you may want to branch out into something different than just kosher salt.
Adding whole cloves of Instant Pot roasted garlic to your vegetables can create amazing flavors that have the added benefit of making you vampire-proof. Fresh sprigs of rosemary or thyme are fun and easy ways to make your roasted vegetables taste delicious. And a squeeze of fresh lemon can do wondrous things to a pan full of vegetables.
If you’re feeling a bit saucy, gluten-free cheese sauce or homemade teriyaki sauce are great ways to add some more flavor. I am also a bit obsessed with putting a huge dollop of cilantro chimichurri on my roasted vegetables.
My go-to seasoning for roasted and grilled veggies is Montreal Steak Seasoning. We put this stuff on everything! Pro tip: Costco shoppers, you can find a 29 oz container of it in the spices section.
How to Roast Frozen Vegetables
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 435˚F. Place a sheet pan in the oven while the oven preheats.
- In a medium mixing bowl, toss the vegetables with the olive oil.2 tsp olive oil, 1 lb frozen vegetables
- Place the vegetables on the pan and roast, depending on the vegetable and your texture preference, stirring halfway through. Do not crowd the pan or thaw the vegetables.
- Suggested Roasting Times*Asparagus ~17 minutes*Beets (sliced) ~20 minutes*Broccoli ~20-26 minutes*Brussel Sprouts ~20-26 minutes*Carrots ~16 minutes*Cauliflower ~17-25 minutes*Squash ~22 minutes
- Top with a pinch of salt.pinch sea salt
Notes
- Do not thaw the frozen vegetables prior to roasting.
- Don’t crowd the pan! Give the vegetables plenty of space to roast. Too much veg all smushed together will cause the water to steam instead of evaporating. Try using two or even three pans if you want to roast larger batches.
- You can reheat your roasted frozen vegetables, but I find they’re best eaten within 1-2 days of roasting.
- This base recipe gives you so much freedom to add your favorite seasonings and flavors. I love mixing in garlic powder, Everything But the Bagel Seasoning, Montreal Steak Seasoning, and grated Parmesan.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Would you know if you can roast frozen vegetables without oil? I do use oil in my way of eating.
You can, but they won’t be as flavorful. You’ll want to make sure you have some surface down between the veggies and pan to prevent sticking if you don’t use oil. Something like parchment would work.
Thanks. I’ll give it a try with Parchment paper and then add some extra spices on it for flavour (at the end of the cooking). I will let you know how it turns out.
Please do! 🙂
This is awesome! Any tips on roasting corn or other veggies? What about artichokes? I’m big on meal prep, and this is exactly what I need.
Hi Shari, this post covers 10 different veggies, but I haven’t tackled corn or artichokes yet. I do have a post on how to freeze corn on the cob which you can find here: https://www.sustainablecooks.com/freezing-corn-on-the-cob/
Did I miss it? What temp do you put your oven at?
Jean, this is a round up of all different kinds of veggies. There is not one set temp. You’ll find cooking times in the chart for different veggies.
Thank you for the reply! I am having fun exploring all the great ideas you have here! So glad I happened upon this.
I’m so glad you’re here too!
Is there a guide with tips and a chart for AIR FRYING frozen vegetables? 🙂
Not yet. But many of the recipes do have air fryer instructions in them.
This post and your charts are super helpful. I refer to the ALL the time.
Yay, that makes me soooo happy Paula, seriously! I think it was my first “infographic” that I made. It’s a little clunky and seriously took me two hours. But knowing that people actually use it, thrills me to no end.
I roasted frozen butternut squash last night…total game changer! It was fast, easy and delicious. Squash is a minimum of 1.99 a lb here, so I rarely buy it, particularly as I’m the only one in my family who eats it. Now that I know I easily can roast a portion for myself without waste, frozen butternut squash will live in my freezer year round. Thanks!
Yahoo! Game-changer is totally what I was going for with this. 🙂
Your article is great any suggestions on roasting Frozen new potatoes or potatoes. Or stew vegatable pack
Hi Dennis, I would definitely try potatoes but I’ve never once found them frozen in my area. I’d roast at 450 degrees, checking after 15 minutes and then reducing the temp to 425 until done.
“Stew vegetable pack” is not something I’m familiar with. Can you tell me more about this?
Thanks so much for this … with the prices of fresh produce going up, I’ve started buying frozen veggies. We prefer roasted to steamed (so much more flavour) and never knew I could do this! It’s our Thanksgiving weekend (Canada) and with so much cooking to do, this is a lifesaver.
You’re so welcome! Figuring out that I could roast frozen veggies truly was a budget and time-saving game changer for us!
Great post!
I did the easy way and put all the half full bags of frozen veggies into a soup pot. Some quinoa, black beans, tomatoes and lots of spices.
Sounds delicious Jude!!
I should also have asked what you do to pre prep the veg!
The stuff I freeze myself? Almost all of it is quickly blanched and then frozen on rimmed baking sheets in a single layer that have been lined with parchment.
Hey Sarah! Happy New Year!
Do you freeze your own veg for roasting, or purchase ready frozen? I often have a surplus of veg due to my overpurchasing and inability to say no to cheap food!
I do a little of both Pauline! Some of my homegrown stuff ends up in the freezer or if I score an amazing deal at the farmer’s market. But for the most part I’m buying bags of frozen veggies from the store.
Wow! This is such a game changer! I have a problem where I end up throwing produce out a lot. Sometimes it’s poor planning. Sometimes it’s just cruddy produce at the store and it doesn’t have good shelf life. I also do the 2B Mindset and it can be tough to get veggies in.
It’s so nice to NOT have to prep the veg. Frozen veggies totally change the game (like you said) because it removes the excuses for me to not make a healthy side dish.
Happy roasting!
Mind blown! I can’t wait to try this.
So easy and cheap!!
This is a great guide! Thanks ever so much for including my roasted carrot salad!
Thanks so much for the wonderful recipe!
I’ve been fixing our veg this way since your post on one pan gnocchi and veg. It has been such a great tip and truly makes dinner prep so much easier. Plus we eat so much more veg this way!! Thank you!!
PS- I’m sharing this post with friends. Such a great post!!
I agree; we eat a ton more veg too. When you only have to open a $1.25 bag of prepped veg, why not make it all the time?
And thanks for sharing!
I love this post and can’t wait to try this! I’m excited about how much time this will save and super excited about not having to wash and chop veggies (one of my least favorite parts of cooking).
I even like to chop Nicole, but man this saves me so much time. Happy roasting!
Do you thaw before roasting or throw the veg frozen into the baking sheet? ????
Frozen and straight from the bag! Doesn’t get any easier than that.