I love cooking with leeks and think they are a bit underrated. There are many ways to cook leeks, but my favorite is to roast them. Roasted leeks become super sweet and tender in the oven, especially with my easy method. For more leek recipes, see our braised leeks or this incredible potato leek soup, one of my favorite soups on Inspired Taste! It’s creamy, hearty, and incredibly delicious.
Key Ingredients
Leeks: I look for medium leeks with a lot of white and light green parts. The dark green tops do not become tender in the oven, so we will remove them before roasting. Take note of my tips for cleaning leeks in the recipe below. They are grown in sandy soil, which means there is a good chance that some of that sand has found its way between the layers of the bottom of the leeks. I also have a step-by-step tutorial for cleaning them here: how to clean leeks. Oil: I love olive oil or avocado oil when roasting veggies. Save your extra-virgin olive oil for another recipe since it has a much lower smoke point. Spices: Salt and pepper are obvious, but my favorite seasoning blend for leeks is Herbs de Provence. It’s a blend of herbs that grow abundantly in southern France, including rosemary, marjoram, thyme, and sometimes lavender buds. I love it with leeks, but you can always substitute another herby blend, like Italian seasoning or Greek seasoning.
2 tablespoons of olive oil 1/2 teaspoon Herbs de Provence 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper 1/2 cup chicken stock or vegetable stock 2Trim off the root end and the dark green tops of the leeks (you can save those for stock if you like!). Slice the leeks in half lengthwise. 3Clean the leeks by fanning the layers open under running water, making sure to rinse away any dirt or sand trapped between them. 4Pat the leeks dry with a paper towel and place them on the prepared baking sheet. Drizzle them with olive oil and season with salt, pepper, and Herbs de Provence. 5Roast the leeks in the oven until they’re tender, about 35 to 45 minutes. To keep them from drying out, add a few spoonfuls of broth to the baking sheet after the first 10 minutes, and then add more as needed as they finish roasting.
