Jamie Oliver's Magical Trick for the Best Roasted Vegetables (It's Just One Ingredient)

I’ve loved Jamie Oliver’s content from a young age. Then, it was Naked Chef, and now it’s his YouTube recipe videos. His charming countryside family life always makes for feel-good programming. 

However, as a health and nature lover, I also really appreciate Oliver’s commitment to offering better-for-you recipes that encourage more sustainable eating practices. He discusses these concepts in many of his videos and, in turn, has conjured up some ingenious ways to make vegetables taste even more delicious.

Just one example of this is this unique one-ingredient upgrade for roasted vegetables—coriander! I tried his recipe myself, only to discover that, indeed, adding coriander to roasted veggies makes them even tastier.

How To Add Coriander to Roasted Vegetables

If you’re not familiar with the ingredient, coriander is actually the seed of the cilantro plant. Interestingly enough, the two taste completely different. Where cilantro offers a pungent, almost lemon-pepper taste, coriander is floral, earthy, tart, and sometimes even sweet.

In Oliver’s recipe, he adds large (or “gnarly” as he’d say) chunks of onion, red bell pepper, butternut squash, leek, zucchini, eggplant, and tomato to a sheet pan. He then adds garlic cloves, a drizzle of olive oil, fresh thyme, rosemary, ground coriander seeds, salt, and pepper. Once tossed together, this bountiful mixture is baked in a 400°F oven for about 50 minutes, and what results is a festive tray of rustic veggies that are perfectly soft with just a bit of char. 

While most home cooks have ground coriander at home, I bought whole coriander seeds and ground them myself to offer an accurate measurement based on Oliver's recommendation for how much to use. The one tablespoon of whole coriander seeds he calls for ground down to about two teaspoons.

This amount of coriander perfumed the dish with the most lovely, subtle, earthy aroma (and flavor) that will have your family wondering happily, “What is that?” It’s a fantastic first introduction to the spice if you’ve never tried it.

Tips for Adding Coriander to Roasted Veggies

While Oliver’s original recipe is incredible as-is, I have a few tips for those trying the recipe for the first time.

1. Add More Coriander: If you’re a coriander lover (like myself) and want a more pronounced coriander flavor in your final product, increase the amount by about a teaspoon of ground or one-half to a full tablespoon of whole seeds. If you want the coriander flavor to shine through even more, slightly reduce the amount of thyme and rosemary in the recipe, as they can easily become the dominant flavors of the dish.
2. Switch Up Your Veggies: While Oliver already includes many of the prime roasting veggies in this dish, potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, parsnips, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage are all delicious alternatives (and play well with coriander). 
3. Play With Your Oven Temp for More Char: If you like a bit more char on your veggies, crank your oven up to 450°F for an additional five to 10 minutes, or until the veggies have met your desired level of brownness, at the end of cooking.