The ultimate beginners guide to carrots; the various types, how to store carrots, prepare, slice, cook, and freeze them! This low-budget humble ingredient is a perfect addition to your plant-based, low-budget kitchen!
When it comes to eating plant-based on a budget, there are several staple ingredients that we love to keep on hand at all times. Along with pulses like lentils and beans and several grains, there are cheap and nutritious vegetables like celery, potatoes, and the humble carrot!
Not only is this simple root vegetable (‘Daucus Carota) a great addition to any low-budget household, but they’re packed with various health benefits and can even be stored for several months (if stored properly!). Plus, if you grow your own (or source carrots with the tops), you can even use the stems and leaves in other recipes!
Best of all, though, this ingredient is tasty too. When enjoyed raw, carrots are crunchy and slightly sweet. When cooked, they become wonderfully tender. Plus, with cooking options including steaming, boiling, frying, roasting, and more – you’re unlikely to run out of new ways to enjoy this root vegetable any time soon. You can even enjoy this ingredient dried and made into chips or powder.
For more cooking 101 guides, you might also like this guide to tofu, zucchini, avocado, quinoa, lentils and brown rice.
While the carrots you’ll find in grocery stores are typically orange, there are varieties: yellow, red, purple, black, and even white, with multiple cultivars within. However, there are two broad types of carrots: ‘eastern carrots’ and ‘western carrots.’
While the Eastern carrots include purple, red, and black varieties, Western carrots are what we know as the common carrot and are orange (or yellow/white), with four main types (classified by their root shape). These types include:
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As previously mentioned, there are several carrot color variations, including carrots with names including ‘purple dragon,’ ‘kaleidoscope,’ and ‘deep purple hybrid’. The color of the carrot impacts the exact nutrition and plant compound composition within.
In terms of flavor, the various carrot types are similar – with slight differences. Whereas orange (and red) carrots are earthy and sweet, purple carrots are sweet with a hint of peppery flavor, and yellow carrots have a milder flavor, with very little earthiness. Here is a guide to the most popular carrots for planting.
Carrots have several well-reported health benefits, including:
You can read more about the carrot health benefits here.
When it comes to storing whole carrots, you can get a good few months (2-3) of shelf life out of them when stored properly, in moist, cool environments (it’s best between 0- 4 °C (32-40 °F). Below are our top tips for carrot storage for between 1-2 months of storage.
How to use the carrot tops? You can use them sprinkled over salads or as a garnish. Alternatively, turn them into a quick and tasty pesto.
Top Tip: Store the carrots away from ethylene-producing veggies and fruits, which can increase ripening.
For long-term storage, unwashed carrots can be placed in a bucket between layers of moist sand, a 50/50 mix of sand and wood shavings, or soil. This way, they can be stored for up to 6 months!
Waste tip: We like to leave the peels on to save a step and add extra nutrients. However, if you peel the carrots, save the peels in a bag in the freezer to make vegetable stock OR turn them into chips/ vegan bacon.
Like the above storage methods, reviving dry carrots is all about introducing moisture back in to them.
The amount of time it takes to rehydrate the carrots will depend on their beginning state. It can take as little as 5 minutes or even overnight. Once rehydrated, you can remove the carrots from the water, pat them dry, and store them in a bag in the fridge.
To say that that the options for enjoying carrots are practically endless would be an understatement. You can enjoy carrots raw, cooked, juiced, dehydrated, etc. Here are just a few easy carrot recipes and uses that we love!
You might also like to browse through our entire collection of plant-based carrot recipes!
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