Mom's Kitchen Handbook

Roasted Broccoli with Tahini, Hazelnuts, and Raisins

Katie Morford

This Roasted Broccoli with Tahini Sauce pretty much encapsulates how I want to eat. It’s a flavor and texture bomb that happens to be enormously nourishing.

The fact that it hits all the hot buttons for good, healthy cooking isn’t surprising. It’s from Pamela Salzman, a Los Angles-based cooking teacher whom I’ve gotten to know and love over Instagram (weird world we live in, but it’s the truth). Pamela and I have a lot in common, from mothering three kids of similar ages to a belief that you can eat a feel-good diet that is undoubtedly delicious.

The broccoli dish is one of 140 recipes in Pamela’s new cookbook, Quicker Than Quick, which falls on the heels of her best seller, Kitchen Matters. Often when I use someone else’s recipe, I find the need to tinker, cutting back on sugar and saturated fat and boosting vegetables and whole grains. Not so with Pamela’s cookbooks, because she’s already done that for me. We are aligned in that way and it makes putting healthy meals on the table easy.

As for this broccoli dish? We’ll be having it on repeat in our house… sometimes as a side dish, others as a main, the table embellished with extra substance, such as jammy eggs, chickpeas, or Greek yogurt. Crusty bread to mop up all the goodies on the plate might be a good idea, too.

5 from 1 vote
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ROASTED BROCCOLI WITH TAHINI SAUCE, HAZELNUTS AND RAISINS

I will try to contain my enthusiasm for how much I love this side dish, but I fear you won’t fully appreciate how super good it is. You will just have to trust me that this tahini-hazelnut-raisin-caper-herb situation is ridiculous and you’ll want to add it to everything (cauliflower, carrots, and eggplant come to mind.) To make this really quickly, just eyeball the ingredients and don’t even measure anything. I cut the broccoli into smaller florets for the purposes of quicker cooking, but if you have time, you can make the pieces bigger.
Servings 4 to 6

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ pounds broccoli crowns cut into florets and then sliced in half through the stem
  • 2 Tablespoons unrefined cold-pressed, extra-virgin olive oil or melted ghee
  • ¾ teaspoon sea salt divided
  • Freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • 1/3 cup tahini
  • 2 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 garlic clove minced
  • 1-2 teaspoons mild raw honey or pure maple syrup
  • ¼ cup roasted and skinned hazelnuts roughly chopped
  • ¼ cup unsulphured green raisins or currants if they are super dry, soak them in warm water for 15 minutes and then drain
  • ¼ cup capers drained from brine
  • 1 cup fresh dill leaves – leave the tender stems attached
  • 1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves – leave the tender stems attached

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper.
  2. Place the broccoli florets on the prepared baking sheet. Drizzle broccoli with oil and toss to coat. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper to taste. Arrange in one layer on the baking sheet. Roast until tender and just starting to crisp up on the edges, about 15 minutes.
  3. Make the sauce: in a medium bowl, combine tahini, enough water to make a pourable sauce (start with ¼ cup and add more as necessary), lemon juice, garlic, honey and remaining ¼ teaspoon salt.
  4. Arrange the herbs on the perimeter of a small platter. Place the broccoli florets in the center. Sprinkle the hazelnuts, raisins, and capers on top and around the broccoli. Drizzle everything with the sauce and serve extra sauce on the side.
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