Who doesn't love a simple and effortless side dish recipe? These baked buttered carrots are truly one of the easiest ways to prep this style of vegetable.

Fresh carrots are baked with water and a bit of salt, then flavored with butter for one of the easiest recipes to serve with chicken, beef, pork or fish.

Sliced and baked carrots in a white square baking dish with a chunk of melting butter in the center and a fork on the side.

Easy Carrot Side Dish

This is one of the easiest ways to cook up carrots. Just chop, toss and bake. If you like this recipe, then you might also want to try our creamy carrots recipe.
It's such an easy dump-and-go recipe that can be paired with almost any main dish. We love to serve ours with baked chicken legs.
Carrots are one of the more affordable vegetables. And with grocery costs going up these days, it's always helpful to save money and eat healthy wherever you can.
These carrots can easily be tossed with fresh herbs, more butter, or even a drizzle of hot sauce.
Carrots bake well with other hearty vegetables like brussels sprouts, parsnips, sweet potato and rutabaga. Bake a large batch and add leftovers to our roasted vegetable wild rice salad.

Recipe Ingredients

CARROTS: This recipe uses six medium carrots that are peeled and sliced into strips. Feel free to cut them any way you want, as long as they're all chopped similar in shape and size for more even cooking. To make more carrots, use a larger baking dish so carrots can form a single layer.

FLAVORS: This recipe keeps things simple with only three ingredients including water, salt and butter. Additional spices, fresh herbs, and broth can be easy flavor upgrades.

Four images to make the recipe including peeled carrots on a cutting board with peeler. Sliced carrots with a knife on cutting board. Peeled uncooked carrots in a white baking dish. And baked carrots with butter in the center and a few chopped fresh herbs.

How To Make Baked Buttered Carrots

These carrots are incredibly easy to make and can be baked at the same time as other recipes.

Peel carrots, then slice them into long strips.
Add carrots to baking dish along with water. Season with salt. Bake according to the full recipe instructions below.
Remove from oven, drizzle with melted butter. Season with salt and pepper. Serve and enjoy!

Recipe Tips

Cooked carrots are slightly soft when poked with a fork, but still crisp enough that they don't break apart.
Toss carrots with fresh herbs like thyme and rosemary for a fragrant boost.
Use coconut oil or avocado oil instead of butter.
Use broth instead of water for added flavor.
Season with salt and pepper to your personal tastes.

Close up of baked buttered carrots with butter in the center.

More Side Dish Ideas

Creamy Carrots are cooked on the stove and tossed with a creamy dressing.
Marinated Mushrooms can be made ahead of time and are served chilled.
Roasted Root Vegetables are such an easy and affordable side dish to serve with almost any meal.
Easy Fried Cabbage is healthy and cheap to make.
Roasted Beets are tossed with balsamic vinegar and fresh rosemary.

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