Roasted Vegetables with Tahini, Lemon & Za'atar (2024)

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Tired, pale, wrinkled — it’s a sad lot of vegetables gracing the farmers’ market tables these days.

But I’m not judging. Those very three words came to mind as I looked in the mirror this morning. I could use a little help right now — some sun, some fresh air, spring — and so could those vegetables. And I’ve got just the thing.

I had read about this tahini sauce in Jerusalem, where it’s used in various places, most notably in a recipe for roasted butternut squash with pine nuts and za’atar, but I never felt compelled to make it until I read this note under my friend’s Instagram photo: “I will never tire of this: roasted CSA root veg and squash, tahini with lemon and za’atar.”

I have since been making the dressing, a combination of tahini, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic, every few nights and roasting everything I can get my hands on from cauliflower to broccoli, carrots to parsnips, onions to cabbage. And when I’ve run out of vegetables to roast, I’ve exhumed what’s left in my vegetable drawer — an endive head, a grapefruit, some pea shoots — and drizzled it on those, too.

I find this dressing, especially in combination with the za’atar, to be irresistible but I know tahini is not everyone’s favorite flavor. In the preface to the tahini sauce recipe in Jerusalem, in fact, Ottolenghi warns that for some people the flavor of tahini spoils everything it touches, from a juicy kabob to a fresh salad.

If you share this feeling, this sauce might not be for you, but if you are on the fence, I highly recommend giving it a go, because once you discover how this tahini dressing awakens those languishing vegetables, you might stop worrying about spring’s arrival altogether. And once you see how the lemon brightens those roasted roots, you might find yourself heading back to the market on a mission for carrots and parsnips or anything looking especially tired, pale and wrinkled. And once you see how the za’atar enlivens those caramelized cabbage wedges, you might find yourself rubbing the sauce all over your face, hoping it might work similar miracles there, too.

I have not, to be clear, tried this. Hoping one of you might for me? Just a thought.

PS: Making the most of your CSA | A few ideas for using those CSA vegetables

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Here is another one to help you through these last few months of winter veg: Bon Appetit’s parsnips with chili butter. They are SO good:

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