Whether you have an actual root cellar, cold storage, or just a cool, dark space in your pantry, there’s something magical about opening a lid and seeing stocks of potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, apples, beets, pumpkin, winter squash, and other root vegetables and winter fruits.

While I love all the colors and shapes of these foods, they also look like comfort to me. I see so many possibilities in a bin of these fruits and vegetables. From fresh, light salads to hearty, comforting meals that warm the kitchen as much as they do the spirit, and even desserts. Carrot cake, anyone?

These root cellar foods are highlighted in the Winter 2023 issue of RecipeLion Magazine. In all, you’ll find more than 30 recipes that take advantage of the delicious, earthy flavors these foods bring to our table. From unique salads and exciting main meals to classic desserts, these recipes explore the joy of a home-cooked meal on a cold winter day. 

Here’s a small sample of the recipes we’re excited about in this issue!

7 Root Cellar Salads: Fresh Flavors from the Depths

Root vegetable … salads? You bet! I really can’t get enough of the many flavors and textures that root vegetables and winter fruits bring into a dish. And if you’re into the aesthetics, you can’t ask for a more colorful salad than one that includes bright red beets, orange carrots, deep red and green kale, striped apples, and multi-colored grains. 

• Beet Salad with Goat Cheese: Beets and goat cheese are one of the best flavor combinations to ever touch a plate, if you ask me. Creamy, zesty goat cheese is a heavenly complement to the sweet, earthy flavors of steamed beets.
• Colorful Carrot Slaw: There’s cole slaw, and there’s this Colorful Carrot Slaw that’s a feast for the eyes and for the taste buds. And to make it even more fun, you don’t have to stick to orange carrots. Add in some red or purple carrots to make this an even more exciting dish.
• Apple & Acorn Squash Salad: It’s smooth. It’s sweet. It’s crunchy. It’s an Apple and Acorn Squash Salad. This salad is healthy, too, but the real reason we love this one around my home is the variety of flavors that kale, cranberries, pecans, Brussels sprouts, and homemade Pumpkin Goddess Dressing bring to this dish.

15 Subterranean Delights: Savory Recipes from the Root Cellar

As much as I love summer vegetables, winter vegetables offer so many options when it comes to recipes. Root vegetables, especially, seem to have an endless array of possibilities. You can bake them, steam them, roast them, fry them, grate them to use as a base for a dish, puree them for smooth recipes, or dice them for textured meals. Add herbs for savory meals; spices for deep, rich flavors; honey or brown sugar for a touch of sweetness … honestly, I feel like winter fruits and vegetables have more than their fair share of culinary greatness. Take a look at some of these.

• Baked Parsnip Fries: Sure, they’re healthy. Yes, they sound fancy if you want to impress your dinner guests. But what I love, love, LOVE about these Baked Parsnip Fries is how absolutely unique and delicious they are. Parsnips have an earthy taste, like carrots, but they’re ever so slightly sweeter. And baked and served with the Creamy Balsamic Reduction Dip included here, they’re a beautiful balance of crispy, tender, sweet, tangy, and savory. 
• Carrot-Ginger Soup: If you ask me, carrot and ginger are two roots made for each other. Zingy, warm ginger and sweet carrots bring out the best in each other. In this recipe, we start by roasting carrots until they caramelize, along with garlic (yum!). From there it just gets better and better, with coriander, allspice, thyme, and mint rounding out the flavors.
• Surprise Butternut Squash Soup: This recipe might sound a little odd at first. You have the sweet, nutty flavors of butternut squash, a touch of spice from a jalapeño pepper, the sour flavors of a Granny Smith apple, and the richness of coconut milk, along with plenty of herbs and spices. Strange as it may seem, these flavors work magic as they mingle together in the slow cooker throughout the day. The result is a rich, creamy soup with deep, luxurious flavors that you’ll want to enjoy over and over. 

10 Root Cellar Sweets

All those veggies in your root cellar and cold storage aren’t just for savory dishes! One of my favorite things about root veggies is how versatile they are in the kitchen. Check out these sweet treats that feature fruits and vegetables like apples, carrots, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and more!

• Cinnamon Baked Apples: If you love the warm, comforting spice of cinnamon; the deep, rich flavors of brown sugar and caramel; the tangy sweetness of apple cider; and, of course, the classic taste of apple, this is a can’t-miss dish. Not only does this dish fulfill all your winter dessert dreams, it’s also quite the showstopper, with cored Gala apples as the serving dish. 
• No-Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake Balls: Cheesecake, pumpkin pie spices, and no baking? This decadent dessert has it all! Oh! Did I mention the outer shell of sweet, white chocolate? This recipe is getting a lot of show time around here, that’s for sure!
• Classic Carrot Cake: I love having carrots in storage. They add such a sense of warm comfort to mid-winter recipes. Carrots are, of course, great in soups, salads, cole slaw, and so many savory dishes, but there’s no beating the joy of a Classic Carrot Cake! Carrot cake manages to be sweet, but not too sweet, moist and rich, and always rapturous!

I hope you enjoy this issue and get to try some exciting and fun new recipes!

Happy cooking, happy winter—and happy eating!

Christy Page
Editor & Publisher

P.S. Please enjoy this issue of RecipeLion Magazine, and let me know what you think about it by commenting below with your feedback! Your input is valuable to us and can help us make improvements.