Roasted sweet potatoes always taste great but roast them with leeks, fennel and lemon slices and this simple dish gets a huge makeover.

The best part of this recipe? Just toss everything together and roast them all together. Just one big pan of veggies roasting together in harmony. The lemon slices caramelize nicely and mellows out the lemon making the slices so tender that you can actually eat the slices, rind and all!

About the recipe

Adding lemon slices with the rind is an idea I got from watching Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa show on Food Network channel.  She was featuring recipes with lemon and this rather unique idea of hers to use lemon slices and roast them along with potatoes was very intriguing.

Though Ina’s recipe roasted lemon slices with Yukon potatoes I decided to do my own variation with a combination of sweet potatoes, fennel and leeks.

Easy as 1, 2, 3

All you do is cut sweet potatoes, fennel, leeks and lemons. Toss them in olive oil with salt and pepper. Spread them on a baking sheet with rosemary sprigs and roast! How easy is that? The rosemary gets all crisp and crunchy and the lemon slices all soft and tender.

Do you like lemon? You’ll love this dish

This is the type of dish that one has to really like lemon because though my kids liked the sweet potato, fennel and leeks, they felt the lemon slices was too much for them.

Here is a recipe for a delicious roasted sweet potato side dish with the added pizzaz of lemon slices. Give it a try!

Roasted Sweet Potatoes, fennel and leeks with lemon slices and rosemary

Ingredients:

• 1lb sweet potatoes about 2-3 large sweet potatoes. Wash, peel and cut the sweet potatoes into slices
• 2 leeks finely cut
• 2 fennel bulbs cut into thin slices
• 1 lemon thinly sliced
• 2 fresh rosemary sprigs
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• In a baking pan toss together all the ingredients except for the rosemary.  Evenly spread the veggies onto the baking pan and top with rosemary sprigs.  Roast for 20 minutes, then toss the veggies round and continue roasting for an additional 20 minutes until sweet potatoes are tender.

• Transfer veggies to a serving bowl and serve warm.