This garlic roasted asparagus recipe is a simple, fast veggie side dish. The asparagus is perfectly tender with perfectly crispy tips. Serve alone, or try our 5-minute garlic herb sauce to drizzle over the top!
We’re sharing this garlic roasted asparagus recipe in the spirit of simplicity. We all need more quick and delicious side dishes in our lives, and this garlicky asparagus hits both notes. Roasted asparagus takes 10 to 20 minutes to roast (depending on how thick the stems are), and the sauce only requires 5 minutes of your time and can even be made days in advance.
We’ve shared many easy veggie side dishes lately, including this quick sautéed bok choy, garlic butter sautéed zucchini, and this easy roasted cabbage.
Key Ingredients
- Asparagus: Look for vibrant green spears with tightly closed, compact tips. A hint of purple on the tips is a welcome sign, too! Avoid asparagus that appears dull, yellowed, or has open flowering tips, as these are telltale signs of age. Beyond color, texture plays an important role. Give the stalks a gentle squeeze – they should feel firm and snap easily when bent. Limp or bendy asparagus is past its prime.
- Garlic: Since asparagus only takes a short time in the oven before it is ready, I love roasting it with fresh minced garlic. When I’m roasting veggies with garlic, I often add it towards the end of the roasting time since the garlic can easily burn, but since asparagus takes such little time, you can toss it in at the beginning.
- Garlic Herb Sauce (Optional): This is one of my favorite veggie dipping sauces! It’s based on our tahini sauce recipe and combines tahini, lemon, parsley, dill, and chives. It’s excellent with toasted asparagus.
How to Make Garlic Roasted Asparagus
Asparagus is one of the simplest vegetables to prepare for cooking (especially when you are planning to roast it). I like to do two things before cooking asparagus:
- Trim the dry, woody bottoms. I simply slice 1/2-inch to 1-inch off the bottom of each stalk. Just cut the drier looking white part away. If you’re lucky and grow your own or purchased from a farmer’s market, the stalks might need a bit more taken off the bottom. To find out, bend the stalks to see where the stalk naturally wants to snap in two. Snap or cut at that point and move onto cooking.
- For thicker asparagus stalks, I peel the outer layer, which can be a little stringy. A vegetable peeler makes quick work of this. If you have thin stalks, skip this step.
To roast the asparagus, toss it with oil, salt, pepper, and garlic. Spread the stalks on a baking sheet, making sure they are all in one layer. Roast them in the oven (I like a 400°F oven) until the tips are a little crispy and the stems are tender. A simple check is to pierce a stem with a fork. If it slides in easily, the asparagus is done!
One of the more classic ways to serve asparagus is with hollandaise sauce. Hollandaise is a rich sauce made with egg yolks and butter. It’s delicious, but we don’t make it at home very often.
Instead of hollandaise, we use our garlic herb tahini sauce. I love this sauce with just about anything, but it is absolutely amazing drizzled over garlic roasted asparagus. We’ve even served it on the side and used it as a dip for the asparagus. The sauce is plant-based, vegan, and delicious. It also lasts in the fridge for five days, so we highly recommend making a batch!
Garlic Roasted Asparagus
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This garlic roasted asparagus recipe is a simple, fast side dish. The asparagus is perfectly tender with slightly crispy tips. I especially love this asparagus when served with our 5-minute tahini herb sauce. It’s deliciously garlicky, fresh, and vegetarian.
You Will Need
Garlic Roasted Asparagus2 pounds asparagus
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic (2 medium cloves)
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
4 thin lemon slices, halved, optional
Garlic Herb Tahini Sauce1/3 cup (80 ml) well stirred tahini, try homemade tahini
1 garlic clove minced very finely into a paste or use a microplane, see note
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, about 1/2 a lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil
Pinch fine sea salt
3 to 6 tablespoons lukewarm water
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
Directions
- Roast Asparagus
1Heat oven to 400°F (204°C) and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
2Break off or slice the tough ends of the asparagus. If the asparagus is thick, peel them (see tips below).
3Place the asparagus on the baking sheet and toss with the olive oil, garlic, a generous pinch of salt, and a generous pinch of black pepper.
4Spread the asparagus out in one layer. Nestle the lemon slices around the asparagus. Roast until tender, 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how thick they are. If you can pierce them with a fork, they are done.
5Serve alone or alongside the garlic herb tahini sauce, which can be drizzled over the roasted asparagus or used as a dipping sauce.
- Garlic Herb Tahini Sauce
1Garlic herb tahini sauce can be made up to 5 days in advance. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
2Whisk the tahini, garlic paste, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt in a bowl until combined. The mixture will thicken; don’t worry about this. Add the water, a tablespoon at a time, whisking well after each addition until desired consistency. For a dip, look for the consistency of thin peanut butter. For a sauce to drizzle over the asparagus, add enough water until the consistency of runny yogurt.
3Stir in the herbs. Taste for seasoning and adjust with additional salt or lemon juice.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Thick asparagus stalks: We peel the outer layer, which can be a little stringy. A vegetable peeler makes quick work of this. If you have thin stalks, skip this step.
- About the sauce: This sauce is an extra herby version of our tahini sauce (click for a video showing how to make it). We make the sauce with homemade tahini. You can buy your tahini, but if you have sesame seeds, you won’t believe how simple it is!
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
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I tried this recipe without any substitutions. I used a nutribullet to blend the garlic herb tahini sauce. This recipe was delicious!
Simple, elegant, healthy. What more could you want from a side dish? For a prettier presentation, you can trim the thorns from the asparagus with a vegetable peeler. Parve Non-gebrokts