Carrots cooked with honey or butter are delightfully delectable. Find out the nutrition facts and some awesome recipes made from cooked carrots, in the following article.
“Some guy invented Vitamin A out of a carrot. I’ll bet he can’t invent a good meal out of one.“―Will Rogers.
Sorry, but I totally disagree with the humorist on this occasion, as I simply love carrots, cooked or raw. Some people believe that when it comes to cooked and raw carrots, the latter is more nutritious. But that is, in fact, a myth. Even though I love the crunchy feel of sweet raw carrots which flood the markets during winters, research shows that the thick cellular walls of raw carrots limit the human body from converting beta-carotene to beneficial vitamin A only to a certain extent.
The body can make most of only 25% of the beta-carotene in carrots in such a case. But cooked carrots have softer cellular walls as cooking helps in the dissolution of the thick cellulose which toughens the cell walls. Thus, the body can actually turn approximately 50% of the beta-carotene content in cooked carrots to vitamin A. So, one must ideally have meals replete with cooked carrots supplemented with some fat. Also, if you boil your carrots whole, you give a 25% boost to their anticarcinogenic properties, and also conserve antioxidants called carotenoids in them better!
Cooked Carrots with Honey
10 minutes of your time; that’s all this dish needs. Quickly lay your hands on,
- Baby carrot, 1 lb.
- Butter, ½ stick
- Honey, 2½ tbsp.
- Lemon juice, 1 tbsp.
- Ginger, ⅛ tsp.
- Salt, to taste
Procedure
In a cooking pan, place the carrots and then fill it with just enough water to submerge the carrots. Add some salt. Cook for about 5 to 7 minutes, and then remove from flame. Now, in a frying pan heat the butter till it melts and then pour in the honey. Keep stirring incessantly, and when it starts to simmer lightly, throw in the ginger and a dash of lemon juice. Sauté for a bit and then add the drained carrots to this. Cook for approximately 5 to 7 minutes more, and remove from flame when the carrots are all well-coated with the honey. You could sprinkle some freshly ground black pepper on this and garnish with some finely chopped parsley. Your honey glazed carrots are ready to be gorged on.
Buttered Cooked Carrots
Lip smacking is the true nature of this dish. Simply gather,
- Baby carrot, 1 lb.
- Butter, ½ stick
- Brown sugar, ⅓ cup
Procedure
Boil the carrots in water for 5 to 7 minutes to soften them. After that, remove the carrots from the pan. From this leftover water, store only enough to submerge the bottom of the pan and drain out the rest. To this water, add the butter and sugar and then stir on a medium flame. Once a simmer appears, add the carrots to this concoction and coat them rather well. Now turn off the flame and place a cover on the pan. Allow it to stand for a couple of minutes and then serve!
Cooked Carrot Nutrition
The following cooked nutritional facts of carrots are in keeping with a carrot weighing around 46 grams, which has been boiled with salt and then drained.
- One carrot has about 16 calories, out of which only 1 comes from fats. Only a boiled carrot without any butter or margarine has no saturated fats at all. However, if you add about 2 grams of margarine to this, the calories in carrots go up to 37, with 15 coming from fats. The saturated fat content in such a case is 0.32 gms.
- Carrots have no cholesterol, no protein content, but are rather rich in sodium. A 46 gram carrot contains 139 mg of sodium, which makes up for nearly 6% of the daily requirement of the mineral.
- A single large carrot has 4 grams of carbohydrates, out of which 2 grams are sugar and 1 gram is made up of dietary fibers.
- Extremely rich in vitamin A (155%) which helps eyesight, prevents night blindness, boosts the health of bones, acts as an antioxidant and cardiovascular shield, other vitamins in carrots include some amount of vitamin C (3%), and very small amounts of vitamin B varieties, such as thiamin (2%), riboflavin (1%), niacin (1%), pantothenic acid (1%), and vitamin B6 (4%), when it comes to cooked carrots.
- It also has traces of other minerals, such as potassium (3%), and more or less equal amounts of calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and zinc, which all cater to about 1% of the daily value stipulation of each mineral.
[* Percentages in bracket indicate the DV (Daily Value) of the contents and not their quantity in the vegetable.]
I hope that by now, the nutritious nature of cooked carrots have become quite clearly apparent to you. So, I shall leave you hear with a quote by Paul Cezanne which I too have come to firmly believe,
“The day is coming when a single carrot freshly observed will set off a revolution.“
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is solely for educating the reader. It is not intended to be a substitute for the advice of a medical expert.