How to Cook Asparagus in the Oven

Asparagus is a delicious vegetable that is often consumed during dinners. Most people think this vegetable is hard to cook because of its looks. But in reality, it is really easy to cook – you can bake asparagus in the oven in under 20 minutes!

You can cook asparagus as an additional dish or main dish – the choice is up to you. Some cooking methods exist to cook asparagus. However, cooking in the oven would be the best choice for health. In this article, you will be informed about ingredients and seasoning. Then, you will learn how to cook asparagus in the oven.

What Does Roasted Asparagus Mean?

Before learning about the ingredients, let’s learn what roasted asparagus means. It can be seen generally at fancy restaurants, mostly as companion food. You can see asparagus with seasoning and sauce on the plate with pasta, fish, etc.

Boiled asparagus wouldn’t be good for companion food since it would be mushy. However, roasted asparagus will be crunchy, which makes it more edible. Moreover, water may take nutrients from the spears. Moreover, it is easy to clean and cook for almost in 30 minutes, cooks prefer asparagus.

Ingredients

There are some essential ingredients that you need to cook asparagus. You can find them in stores or organic markets easily. These are:

• Asparagus, of course. Choosing firmly closed would be helpful. Be careful not to purchase any of them that has rotten parts.
• Olive oil is the most important factor here. It will provide crunchiness while providing nutrients for the meal.
• Salt, black pepper, and spice would be a great addition to flavor. But you don’t have to add these, don’t worry. You can also add garlic powder if you like.
• You can add parmesan cheese to richen the flavor, but this one is optional.

How to Prepare Asparagus

Before proceeding with how to cook asparagus in the oven, we need to learn how to prepare it. Let’s check out the preparation steps.

1. You need to wash them efficiently. There may be some dust or soil on the surface, so you need to wash them for 2-3 minutes to get rid of all of the dirt.
2. Remove the tough and woody parts. They will affect the taste, so you need to remove them. You can bend over the spares to remove these parts.
3. Check the spears last time before moving cooking. When you see rotten or untrimmed parts, do the required trim or cleaning. Unwanted parts may affect the taste greatly.

Seasoning

Seasoning means a magical touch to meals. With the help of some spices, your meal will be more delicious. Before learning about their types, please note that seasoning is optional. You can cook asparagus without seasoning. The choice is ultimately up to you. Here are some seasoning recommendations:

• Grated parmesan cheese will add a sharp taste to your meal. (You can skip adding this if you are vegan or allergic.) You can use sliced lemon to suppress this sharpness and add sour.
• Garlic powder can be used with other spices like black pepper and onion powder. If you like two powders, you can mix these two with other spices. Be careful, this wouldn’t be good for people that have a sensitive stomach.
• You can use balsamic vinegar with lemon juice to have the sour and sharp taste of asparagus.

How to Cook Asparagus in the Oven?

1. Preheat the oven while preparing the ingredients. 425°F (220°C) is fine.
2. Lay the baking sheet down when you’ve done preparing ingredients.
3. Put the asparagus on the baking tray. Add olive oil and seasoning. Even though you don’t want to add seasoning, adding salt would be positive for taste.
4. Put the baking tray into the preheated oven. Being preheated will help to make softer spears.
5. After 10-15 minutes, the spears will start to turn brown. Pierce them with a fork to control, then take the baking tray. That’s all!

How Long Do You Cook Asparagus in the Oven?

Knowing the timing is as important as cooking. It’s the key to reaching delicious meals. Cooking asparagus in the oven takes 10-15 minutes. Be careful, over 15 minutes is considered overcooking and won’t be good for the vegetable. They will become mushy. If you like them a bit raw, cooking for 10 minutes would be fine. However, they would be less crunchy.

Colors will tell you about the timing. You can understand from these signs that time is over: Roots turning vivid green while tips turn brown. Take one fork and pierce the asparagus with it. If it goes down, it means that your vegetable is ready. Be careful while doing this, and don’t forget to use baking gloves to open the oven.

How to Store Asparagus

The best way is to cook them on the day you buy them. However, if you want to cook asparagus 2-3 days later, you need to provide suitable conditions. You need to store them to be prepared later, following these steps would be helpful:

• Washing them with cold water makes them more resistant a bit than normal.
• After trimming the roots, put the spears vertically in a jar with 1 inch of water.
• Use a plastic zipper bag to store them in a fridge.
• Note that they don’t like being waited before cooking. Therefore, buying them on the day, you cook them would be a great choice.

 General Tips

Like almost all recipes, some cooking tips exist to learn how to cook asparagus in the oven. These will help you to get more delicious food and general tips overall.

• Long and thin spears will be good for boiling instead of cooking in the oven. For baking, short and thick ones would be good.
• Always preheat the oven. Skipping this won’t be good for their softness.
• Using seasoning would make a great addition to the taste. Since asparagus has a bit of a spicy flavor, the seasoning will replace this spicy taste.
• If you didn’t finish all of them during meal time, don’t worry. It can be heated in the oven or microwave. You can also eat it without heating, directly taken from the fridge.
• However, freezing them is not recommended because frozen asparagus can be mushy easily.

Serving Ideas

Roasted asparagus can be a companion food for the main dishes, you can choose it without hesitating. You can cook a nice dinner just in 1 hour. Since it is easy to cook in the oven and takes 30-35 minutes, it would be practical to serve as a companion food. We mentioned them above, so now it’s time to learn the mentioned dishes.

It will be a great pair if you like salmon, especially the grilled salmon & baked asparagus. You can add some sauce or lemon juice to create a sour dinner. If you are not a fan of fish but seafood, crab cakes will help you to make a unique dinner! Adding the baked asparagus into crab cakes will give a bit of spicy flavor. Some vegetables go well with meat, and asparagus is one of them.

Conclusion

In conclusion, learning how to cook asparagus in the oven is not complicated as you think. Sometimes, cooking vegetables seem difficult because overcooking or burning exists. But they exist for all foods, not just for vegetables. You can make delicious baked asparagus in the oven in 30 minutes. All you need to do is follow the steps correctly and be careful about some steps, such as choosing the good spears, trimming, and timing.

Seasoning, oil, and vinegar would make your dish tastier. But there is no obligation to add them to your recipe, don’t worry. While baking, you can rest or prepare other dishes that go well with asparagus, like meat, salmon, etc. The choice is up to you. You can create various recipes on your own.