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THREE more days ’til Thanksgiving and I swear I am already in eating/cooking mode even though I still have 2 more days until I will be reunited with my family! In my latest Instagram post, I mentioned that  I will be posting vegan and vegetarian recipes leading up to Thanksgiving just to give you all some ideas for how to cook up meat-free dishes and consume less meat! This suggestion is only if you were looking forward to eating less meat this Thanksgiving holiday, which is always a good thing! Yesterday I posted some vegan 3-ingredient peanut butter truffles and today I am posting up an appetizer that cost roughly $2-4 to make. I am talking about roasted lemon pepper baby carrots with a lemon tahini drizzle! The tahini drizzle is optional since the carrots are so delicious and flavorful themselves, but I love having a combination of textures so I added a drizzle.

I purchased a 16 oz. bag of baby carrots for $0.99, a lemon for $0.33 and had the rest of the ingredients on hand: tahini, garlic or garlic powder, lemon pepper blend, and olive oil. You may find tahini in your local Mediterranean store for cheaper than an American store. I purchased mine at a market called Phoenicia for $2.99.

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Roasted Lemon Pepper Carrots (Vegan + GF)

yield: 16 oz. carrots

Ingredients:

For carrots:

• 1 bag 16 oz. baby carrots
• 1 1/2 tsp. lemon pepper seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. salt (if lemon pepper seasoning is unsalted)
• 1 T. olive oil

For tahini dressing:

• 1 T. tahini
• 1 T. water
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 tsp. crushed garlic
• 1/2 tsp. lemon juice

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
2. Pat carrots dry with a clean cloth or paper towel.
3. In a medium bowl, toss the carrots with oil, salt, and lemon pepper seasoning. Place on a nonstick baking sheet and bake for 30-40 min or until they have slightly browned and shriveled a bit.
4. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 10 min.
5. In the meantime, combine all the tahini dressing ingredients in a small bowl and drizzle over the carrots.

This recipe is difficult to resist and I guarantee you, it will be a showstopping appetizer! I love the colors or orange and white which matches the Thanksgiving/Fall mood, but I make this dish throughout the year as a way to increase my vegetable intake and it is overall an inexpensive way to get more veggies into my diet. I like my roasted veggies to be shriveled and kind of crispy and setting the oven at 425 F for this amount of time will help you achieve this texture and appearance. If you do not want them to look shriveled, consider baking for less time.

Happy Cooking!