How to make the BEST roast vege salad ever

So delicious and colourful and such a hit with everyone! Mix and match according to the seasons and flavours. After years of wedding catering and close to a hundred roast vege salads behind me I figured out how to avoid a soggy mushy mess, and instead vegetables that are bright-coloured, caremelised, tasty and perfectly cooked. Whether you are making this for 5 people or 200, the same principles apply:

• Cook everything in one layer to ensure you get caremelised, not soggy, veges.
• Cut each type of veg into even sized pieces so they cook evenly.

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• Cook each veg separately – in its own spot on the tray or in its own tray if you are cooking for a crowd. This ensures each one is cooked perfectly (for example, carrots will not take as long as kumara so if they are all mixed up together, one will end up over cooked or one under). It also means you can season each veg differently: (eg thyme on your carrots, rosemary on the spuds, balsamic in the beetroot). Take out each veg as it is cooked and pile in the serving dish. Wait until they are all finished before mixing together so they stay intact.

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• Before roasting, toss each veg in olive oil, sea salt and woody herbs (such as thyme, rosemary, bay), and maybe a seasoning such as lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, honey.
• Red beetroot: people rave about roasted beetroot, but I have only ever ended up with brown, shrivelled up bits of leather. I now follow Jamie Oliver’s method, although not as much water as he uses. Cut the beetroot into even sized pieces, place in one layer in a roasting pan. Add 1/4 -½ cup water and a good splash of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, season with sea salt and give it all a good toss. Cover with tin foil and put in the oven. When it is done, the water will have boiled away, the balsamic vinegar will have been absorbed and the beetroot will still be plump and bright coloured but just starting to caremelise around the edges. Keep an eye on this towards the half hour mark. Don’t add it to the salad until the end after you have finished all your stirring and tossing or it will turn everything else red.

• When all the veg are cooked, toss them together with a dressing. Sturdy autumn and winter veg can hold a strong mustardy vinaigrette. The summer vegetables I used here only needed a squeeze of lemon. Finish with a sprinkle of soft herbs – parsley, mint, basil, coriander.
• Make a seasonal pesto to serve in a bowl on the side – in summer make basil pesto, in autumn and winter a parsley walnut pesto
• Serve hot or room temperature.