Hot Honey Roasted Carrots
Sweet meets heat in this delicious roasted carrot side dish. The hot honey glaze for these carrots has just two ingredients – honey and chili garlic sauce. It doesn’t get easier than that!
I just discovered the most delicious way to eat carrots – roasted with hot honey. I know I’m late to the hot honey craze, but wow this stuff is good. As the name implies, this sweet and spicy condiment is simply honey infused with chili peppers.
Hot honey’s popularity in the United States is attributed to a gentlemen named Mike Kurtz. While studying abroad in Brazil, Mike noticed jars of chili-infused honey on the tables of a pizzeria he was visiting. Its purpose was for drizzling over slices of pizza. Mike tried it, fell in love with the unique flavor profile, and brought the concept back home. After much experimentation, he created his version of hot honey and served it at a famous pizzeria in New York. The popularity of his hot honey soared and following repeated requests from patrons to purchase the honey, Mike began bottling his creation. That’s the short version of the story behind the bottles of Mike’s Hot Honey you see at your grocery store.
A lot of copycat recipes for this famous hot honey involve gently heating honey in a pan with slices of fresh chili peppers (such as jalapeños or serranos) or red pepper flakes. After removing the honey and pepper mixture from the heat, it sits for 15 minutes or so, giving the spicy heat from the peppers time to infuse into the sweet honey. The honey is then poured through a fine mesh strainer to remove the pepper slices. Additional flavorings like garlic, cider vinegar, and salt are often added to create this incredible condiment.
While this approach to making hot honey is fairly simple, I found an even easier way to make it, and it involves just two ingredients – honey and chili garlic sauce. Full disclosure, my husband actually suggested using chili garlic sauce and he was spot on. I just mixed the honey with the chili garlic sauce and voila, I had hot honey. The Huy Fong Foods brand of chili garlic sauce is perfect for making hot honey. In addition to the chili peppers, it contains garlic, vinegar (acetic acid), and salt. It’s all the ingredients called for in more involved recipes for hot honey combined into one simple ingredient.
Beyond roasted carrots, this two-ingredient hot honey is amazing on so many things. It’s a perfect glaze for salmon, pork tenderloin, or boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Drizzle it over pancakes, biscuits, cornbread, waffles, or avocado toast. It adds a flavor punch to Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, or ricotta. Use it as dipping sauce for grilled shrimp or cocktail meatballs. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
To your health,
Darlene
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Full disclosure — I did not receive payment or free product from any company mentioned in this post.
HOT HONEY ROASTED CARROTS
Yield: 6 servings
Serving Size: about 1/2 cup
Prep: 10 minutes
Ready: 35 minutes
INGREDIENTS
Hot honey
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (such as Huy Fong Foods Chili Garlic Sauce)
Remaining ingredients
1 (2 pound) bag fresh whole carrots
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon minced fresh chives or parsley
DIRECTIONS
To prepare the hot honey, combine honey and chili garlic sauce in a small bowl. Set aside, allowing flavors to blend while preparing remaining ingredients.
Peel and clean whole carrots. Slice carrots diagonally (about a 1/4-inch thick) and place on a large sheet pan. Drizzle carrots with oil and toss to coat. Place carrots in a preheated 425-degree F oven and roast for 10 minutes. Remove sheet pan from oven and drizzle carrots with 2 tablespoons of hot honey. Gently stir to coat carrots in sauce. Return carrots to oven and roast an additional 15 minutes, allowing hot honey glaze to thicken and coat vegetables.
Remove carrots from oven, add remaining hot honey and salt and gently stir carrots. Place roasted carrots in a serving bowl, garnish with chives, and serve.
Cooking Tip:
For even roasting, cut carrots to a uniform size and arrange in a single layer on the sheet pan. Stacking the carrots on the pan can result in a mushy texture.
Nutrition Information per Serving
135 Calories, 5 g Total fat, 1 g Saturated fat, 0 g Trans fat, 0 mg Cholesterol, 181 mg Sodium, 24 g Total carbohydrate, 4 g Dietary fiber, 17 g Total sugars, 11 g Added sugars, 1 g Protein, 0 mcg (0%) Vitamin D, 43 mg (4%) Calcium, 0 mg (0%) Iron, 419 mg (8%) Potassium
© 2025 RECIPES MADE HEALTHY BY DARLENE ZIMMERMAN, MS, RD LLC
