Roasted Broccoli with Soy Sauce

My sister said it best—it’s like Chinese takeout broccoli only way better! This roasted broccoli was a big hit at dinner and it was so easy! I loved the classic combo of ginger, garlic, and soy sauce. The butter gave it all just a touch of velvetiness.

I did a little extra roasting to get more color on my broccoli, which is how I like it best. I’ll be making this again but I’ll be making a double batch! I think it would serve 6 as a side item when I don’t take into account all the shameless nibbling off the pan I did.

You know you’ve found a winning broccoli recipe when the kids ask for seconds! This was a great way to cook broccoli—the roasted broccoli was tender but not limp and the soy butter was a simple and delicious way to dress up an everyday side.

The number of servings is difficult to determine with this dish because it was so addictive that I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for more. Nor could my tasters. It was simple to prepare, requiring just a short time for chopping the garlic, grating the ginger, and cutting up the broccoli florets, and since it only called for the rimmed baking sheet rather than a bowl, cleanup was pretty simple as well.

Roasting time seemed accurate and produced these lovely browned little bits, but the photograph and my end product didn’t really look alike. Where the image shows mostly green florets, mine were all very brown, but the browning seems to have increased their ability to absorb enormous amounts of flavor from the soy sauce/butter combination that added to their overall addictiveness.

I may have used too much salt given that I used regular, rather than low sodium soy sauce, so I’ll be more judicious next time, but that didn’t detract from their deliciousness. I would definitely make this again and experiment with different vegetables.

We did like the combination of soy sauce and butter on the roasted broccoli and plan to use cauliflower next time. It’s a basic roasted broccoli recipe, but the nuttiness of the toasted sesame oil, butter and soy sauce was very good. I may try butternut squash like this in the fall.

This is a tasty and easy side dish that was perfect for a weeknight dinner. I prefer roasting my veggies, so was drawn to trying this. The butter and soy almost caramelize in the oven and form this sticky delicious coating.

My only tweak would be to toss in the garlic and ginger maybe 5 to 10 minutes into the roasting—given the really high temps (plus my fan assisted oven), they got quite dark by the time the 20 min were up. Other than that, I can easily see making this again from memory!

I substituted cauliflower for the broccoli because that’s what I’d been planning to make for dinner using my own recipe for roasting it. Changing to this roasted broccoli recipe was no problem since all of the other ingredients are those that I typically have on hand.

The combination of sesame oil, butter and soy sauce elevated the cauliflower in the same way that I believe it would the broccoli. The taste wasn’t overpowering, just a delicate balance of Asian flavors enhanced by the creaminess of the butter. Would definitely recommend trying this with other types of vegetables.

This roasted broccoli recipe was quick to put together and the end result was decent—almost like candied broccoli. I used a small head of broccoli and halved the rest of the ingredients. Cooking time was about 15 minutes. The result was good.