I realize, after 18 years as a part of it, that the rules of the food internet in the week before the American cooking superbowl we call Thanksgiving dictate that everything should relate back to turkey, stuffing, or pie. But friends, we have that abundantly covered in the archives, and the newsletter. So let me tell you what I’ve been making a lot lately to feed myself what I crave, and that is sheet pans of mixed vegetables roasted until almost charred, finished with a balsamic vinaigrette, and studded with heavenly, salty, crispy pillows of halloumi.
Halloumi is a semi-hard, brined, salty cheese from Cyprus with a squeaky, slightly rubbery texture (when cool) and a pillowy soft texture (when warm) with crisp edges if grilled, fried, or roasted. I adore it. But, to me, the wonder of halloumi is when it’s warm, so when I see it grilled and then put into a salad that will be chilled or even at room temperature, returning it to its squeaky and less magical state, I find it a little disappointing, but I keep it to myself. Well, most of the time. Whose idea was it to give me a place to mouth off, anyway?
This sheet pan method, in which the vegetables are crowded and warm, doused in a vinaigrette, keeps the halloumi tender until it reaches your plate. I’ve got a summer version of this in Smitten Kitchen Every Day, Halloumi Roast with Eggplant, Zucchini and Tomatoes, that you shouldn’t miss. And this is the long overdue fall/winter edition. I’ve been making it with sweet potatoes, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts, but other hearty vegetables work great here too, even cabbage or broccoli florets. Make it with whatever you’ve got that sounds good (or needs to go), but make it for you, and soon, before we get too busy feeding everyone else.
It’s here! The special audiobook edition of Smitten Kitchen Keepers, Smitten Kitchen Keepers: A Kitchen Counter Conversation published last week. Read by me, I hope it feels exactly like you’ve pulled up a chair and we’re hanging out in the kitchen together. Bonus recipe: When you purchase the audiobook, you will receive a signed holiday card from me, perfect to give as a gift, with a bonus recipe. To receive your card, complete the form with your purchase order number right here.
Halloumi and Fall Vegetable Roast
- 4 tablespoons olive oil, plus for pans
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- Many grinds of black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
- 1 pound cauliflower, cut into 1-2-inch florets
- 1 pound sweet potatoes, in 1-inch chunks
- 1 pound brussels sprouts, trimmed, halved
- 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
- 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- One 8-ounce (225-gram) block halloumi, in 1-inch cubes
In a large bowl, combine 4 tablespoons olive oil, garlic, thyme, salt, black and red pepper. Add vegetables and halloumi to marinade, stirring to evenly coat.
Spread mixture out on the roasting tray(s) in as even as a layer as possible, and roast for 20 to 30 minutes on the first side, until browned underneath, then flip and roast for 10 to 15 minutes more on the second, until the vegetables and halloumi are browned in spots and tender. While it roasts, whisk together balsamic and honey. As soon as the sheet pan leaves the oven, drizzle the balsamic and honey mixture over the vegetables. It should sizzle and the heat will soften some of the vinegar’s bite. Scoop onto plates and eat right away.
Previously
6 months ago: Grilled Feta with Asparagus Chimichurri
1 year ago: Olive Oil Brownies
2 years ago: Green Angel Hair with Garlic Butter
3 years ago: Cranberry Pecan Bread
4 years ago: Potato and Leek Gratin
5 years ago: Perfect Apple Tarte Tatin
6 years ago: Roberta’s Roasted Garlic Caesar Salad
7 years ago: Endive Salad with Toasted Breadcrumbs
8 years ago: Roasted Cauliflower with Pumpkin Seeds and Brown Butter and Apple Strudel
9 years ago: Oven Fries and Chocolate Peanut and Pretzel Brittle
10 years ago: Squash Toasts with Ricotta and Cider Vinegar
11 years ago: Spinach and Egg Pizzettes
12 years ago: Apple Cider Caramels
13 years ago: Homesick Texan Carnitas
14 years ago: Spicy Squash Salad with Lentils and Goat Cheese and Buckeyes
15 years ago: Baked Chicken Meatballs and Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats
16 years ago: Cabbage and Mushroom Galette and Peanut Butter Crispy Bars
17 years ago: Cranberry Caramel and Almond Tart and Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic
18 years ago: Not Your Mama’s Coleslaw
This sounds utterly amazeballs. I wonder how it would be with the smoked maple syrup I have!
Doooooo it… it sounds amazing. I may need to order some smoked maple syrup just for this recipe.
What a delightful recipe, I can’t wait to make it. Thank you Deb!
This looks amazing! And I read “American cooking superbowl” as superfowl, which also works….🦃🦃🦃.
Any suggestions for a halloumi alternative? I live in the boonies of NW Virginia and there isn’t a lot of diversity at my grocery stores.
Just above the list of ingredients, Deb mentions that sprinkling feta over the roasted vegetables at the end would be another approach. That might be what you’re looking for.
Most grocery stores have bread cheese, which is milder and cooks up to similar effect. Look for it in the special cheese section.
I’ve made this twice. The first time I followed directions and put the halloumi in from the start. Far too long and practically inedible. The next time it went in 5 minutes before the final timer. Perfect.
Queso de freir
Same. I’d try paneer (if you have a South Asian presence in your community) or maybe one of the non-melting Mexican cheeses like cotija or queso blanco. Of the three, I’ll probably start with queso blanco, which is widely available in my own slice of the Upper Mid-South. I love halloumi, but can’t get it anywhere within at least 100 miles of here.
Wow! This is exactly what I want to have for dinner every night this week. Thank you!
18 years!?! Smitten Kitchen is all grown up! 😀 Congrats!
Halloumi tip: let your cubes sit in tap hot water for 10-15 minutes, lightly towel dry, and THEN add to the pan. This will avoid rock hard halloumi.
Some Costco stores sell it, so if you’re anywhere near one (maybe Winchester?) you might be able to find it there
Sorry this should have posted in response to Holly
This is good to note as it’s much cheaper when purchased from Costco!
I’m absolutely obsessed with the summer version of this recipe from Smitten Kitchen Every Day with eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes. My grocery store doesn’t stock halloumi, so I’ve been making it with paneer, and it’s delicious. The paneer browns really beautifully without melting. Excited to try the fall version!
I happen to have some paneer…thanks for your comment!
Good to know about the paneer, as we are also obsessed with the summer version and can’t always find halloumi in SW Virginia. We long for a Trader Joe’s.
Ooh, just what I need today, can’t wait to try it!
roasted veggies are the best!!! the halloumi is new to me, sounds wonderful
Deb! I know you just wrote that you don’t want to do another Thanksgiving recipe, but what about a dish that would be welcome on the Thanksgiving table as well as any time thereafter? I was on food Instagram yesterday and saw a Reel for an absolutely bonkers looking Japanese milk bread pull-apart loaf that was slathered with herbed garlic butter and grated gruyere in between each pull-apart layer. It reminded me of the insane garlic bread at Donna’s, in Los Angeles, where they make halfway cuts into a mini sourdough loaf, tuck in parmesan, herbs, and roast garlic-studded softened butter into each pocket, grate on more parm on top, and then broil. Your garlic bread is so good, I know it would benefit from the milk bread, gruyere, and pull-apart treatment.
Garlicky Party Bread? Cheddar, beer, and mustard pull-apart bread? A galette?
Oooh this is how I can eat all the cheese I crave while still feeding my people who don’t like cheese. I wonder if it could be modified with a block of feta added in the last 10 minutes when the veggies are flipped. And then served with grilled bread – feta slathered on and topped with roast veggies, finished with a drizzle of balsamic or the vinaigrette.
Deb. Two in a row! I happened to have all of the ingredients on the day you posted a new recipe and made it that night. Hoping for a trifecta with this bloggery version of Chopped. Thank you!
I love halloumi! It’s only a seasonal thing where I live, but the package expiration dates extend into the next season. The only question I had for this was whether it was worth using one from my hoard.
Yes, with caveats. I cooked a half recipe since it’s just me. The biggest issue I found was in the timing. I chose the lower end of both sections, and the halloumi is burned almost beyond recognition. :-( it looked fine after the first 20 minutes, but I figured to stop then was such a big difference in the recipe I let it go for another 10 minutes. I also threw in some end-of-season tomatoes that I had which worked out great to provide the sweetness that the maple syrup would provide, since I don’t like the flavor of maple.
I also used broccoli and butternut squash and onions in addition to the tomatoes, because that’s what I had lying around. Overall, very tasty but definitely no more than 25 minutes in the oven!
We make the summer version all the time and add the halloumi about halfway through.
I have a factory sealed slice of pate that sat in my fridge for the two days when we had no power, so that has to be dinner tonight. But what to do with it? I almost didn’t log onto your site, figuring that it would be cranberry-something-or-other or pumpkin whatchamacallit, but no, you ride to the rescue. I just happen to have all the ingredients, too. How did you know??
I have been tasked with cooking dinner the day after thanksgiving for a group, and I think this is gonna be it! Serve with some arugula and pomegranate maybe. (Also satisfies a couple separate dietary restrictions at the same time!)
Looking forward to making this version! I love the summer one from the book and just wanted to share that I’ve been adding a package of gnocchi to it, to make it more filling without extra effort. Happy fall, y’all!
Thank you! A savory yummy sweet potato dish. The sweet potato dish, covered with marshmallows, and enough sugar to bake 10,000 cookies in a dish, is gone in this house!
This was delicious. Substituted broccoli for cauliflower, but otherwise made as written.
This was fantastic! The honey balsamic at the end is such a nice touch. I will be making this all winter!
Made this tonight. Followed the recipe exactly. Easy and delish!
What a perfect use for a package of TJ’s “pizza cheese” in my fridge.
(It’s seasoned halloumi.)
Delish! Except that my halloumi ended up totally dried out. I think in the future I’ll let veggies go first then add halloumi towards the end.
What a delightful side dish! Fantastic and big hit in my house.
Made this with the same mix of veg, which is really good. I changed the timing for the halloumi because I chopped it up too small – put in after 20 mins and honestly that was perfect. I also cut down a n the amount of vinegar (just to 1 tablespoon) because I only had rubbishy supermarket balsamic that was very acidic and thought my kids would moan – and again that made it tangy but not too much. Very very happy – will make again!!
This sounds amazing! Do you think it would work with tofu in addition to or instead of halloumi, for more protein? Might need less roasting time…
Yes — you might find guidance in this or this recipe too.
Wonderful, thank you! I’ve made the black pepper tofu & eggplant in the past with great success, so I’ll use that as a guide.
I made this last night! It was sooo yummy! I used some leftover “bread cheese” I got from Wegmans along with halloumi and it gets a bit meltier but the outside still gets crispy. I liked it a little more than the halloumi because it was softer on the inside :) I’d second the recommendation to soak the halloumi in water for 15 min before baking to reduce drying out
Being a vegetarian living alone I keep it simple. A baked sweet potato, stuffing, Brussel Sprouts with chestnuts, cranberry sauce and dessert a homemade blueberry pie. The day after, I’ll roast sweet potato strips alongside parsnips, mushrooms, baby sweet corn. Yum.
This was delicious! Full disclosure, I tweaked it mightily, so take my opinions for what they’re worth. I roasted butternut squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and persimmons together on one tray for about 25 minutes (at 425), and shredded Brussels sprouts & halloumi on a separate tray for about 15 minutes, then tossed everything in the balsamic-maple mixture. I then put the veg/cheese mixture on top of a salad of farro, walnuts, shallots, and apple in a dijon-maple-lemon dressing, and topped the whole shebang with pomegranate seeds and torn mint leaves. It was great!
Wait what you can roast persimmons?? Fuyu (flatter) not Hachiya (more acorn shaped) I guess. How do you prep them? I love this idea!
I love this! Another great option for an alternative to halloumi is Bread Cheese, with a spritz of lemon juice after its time in the oven.
This was so delicious! I followed the recipe pretty precisely and was thrilled. I didn’t pre-soak the halloumi in warm water (as some commenters have suggested) and thought it turned out perfectly–crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. I will undoubtedly make this multiple times throughout the Winter. Thank you so much!
Yes! The summer version is the most stained page in my copy of your book. My mother stayed with me few weeks this past summer and I made it. She loves it and makes it now too. This fall version will be on rotation all winter. Thankfully halloumi is readily available here in Vancouver Canada. Thanks for another winner.
I feel so validated! I started making something like this some years ago when I had a lot of different kinds of root veg in the garden. Although I didn’t make a dressing, I’ll have to try that.
It’s incredibly flexible – we usually add small quartered onions, butternut squash, and/or whole garlic cloves.
i used all different veggies and accidentally overbaked it and it was STILL delicious! will definitely make again
I made this yesterday. Following quantities exactly, but perhaps cutting things a little smaller, I ended up with a very crowded half-sheet pan – a bit more than your photo, I think. Indeed, cooking took a bit longer and it was more steamed than roasted (admittedly, this worked well for some of the people I was feeding, who aren’t as into roast character as I am).
I’d appreciate more clarity about the intent here – should I be going for giving the vegetables the traditional spacing on a half-sheet pan (or more likely two) and fully roasting, or is the partial-steaming intended?
So good! A few changes: added chicken apple sausage to appease the carnivores in our family, waited to add halloumi until the last 15 minutes and flipped the cheese halfway through that last 15 minutes, and only used 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar for the glaze at the end instead of 3. We really liked it!
I’m in the medical field so have to work tomorrow, and live alone (with dog) so this was Thanksgiving dinner. It was so good and so easy and I’d make it for Thanksgiving any year. I’d make it for non-holiday meals, too.
I cannot wait to try this. Looks so good…except for the charring. Not to be a killjoy, but I now love to roast vegetables, yet dont want the heavy duty charring as shown here. It often happens with broccoli and brussels sprouts to the point that I have sometimes discarded them. As with grilled food in general, charred food is carcinogenic, so it almost seems against the point of eating vegetables to do this to them. Ovens vary, but honestly, I bake mine at 350-375 degrees. I cut them up about about 1 1/2 ” big, start to watch them carefully after 30 minutes, and eat them as soon as a fork goes in easily. They are usually touched with brown, not black, and still so delicious! I AM thinking of steaming the brussels sprouts slightly before roasting because it is so tough to get the insides done without burning the outside. Has anyone tried this? I really do love brussels sprout side dishes but have been avoiding roasting them because of this problem.
I am on a three-year streak of getting colds at Thanksgiving. I plan a big meal, then bonk out and cook all the dishes spread out over a few days when I have the energy. This was our favorite!
I left out the red pepper flakes due to my tiny, spice-adverse children. They ate it all up, digging for the halloumi like little treasures.
For anyone like me who foolishly thought “baked feta is a thing, i’m sure it would hold up just fine cubed and roasted along with the vegetables”, please be warned that it does not, and Deb actually means it when she says to add it at the end
I made this tonight (minus the cauliflower which I didn’t have) and it was wonderful–my husband loved it. I had intended to sub broccoli but my sheet pan was full with just the sweet potato, cheese, and sprouts–plenty for the two of us.
It paired really well with a side of the herby cornbread mushroom dressing I had
prepared for Thanksgiving.
How come your site now defaults to a very small page, with minuscule font? Can no longer cook with my tablet, it’s a pain. Using latest firefox on kindle fire
Made this tonight and it was easy and insanely good. Served with sliced baguette and butter. I used the frozen sheet pan vegetable mix from Costco/broccoli, sweet potato, sprouts and red onion-since I had it in freezer and it worked beautifully.
Yum! Threw everything in a 12” cast iron skillet (used upper cooking limits) and subbed broccoli for sprouts because sad Thanksgiving rejects were all that was left. Love how broccoli got crispy and nice foil to rest of veg. Finished with RG banana vinegar and the honey. Been heavily using SK since my days as a newlywed in a tiny NYC apartment, now 15 years later, we’re back in a teeny tiny kitchen living full time on the road in an RV. Appreciate you so much Deb, you never disappoint, no matter where we take you!
Made this alongside a pot of farro for the most delicious wintry grain bowl! Worth hunting down a few grocery stores for halloumi (weirdly Trader Joe’s doesn’t carry this right now??).
Luckily I checked it at 15 minutes— both halloumi and vegetables were burned on the bottom. Next time I’ll do this at 425 and avoid the lower rack.
I love the summer recipe but sub in zucchini and yellow squash for the eggplant (not much nutritive value). Last night I added cubes of pressed tofu to add protein (used less halloumi to lower the sodium). The summer vegetable recipe I have doesn’t have the glaze.
I ate leftovers cold and enjoyed immensely.
A delicious recipe. I substituted broccoli for the brussels sprouts and added extra halloumi. My teenagers complimented a vegetable dish, “It is perfectly spiced.” This never happens!!! Worth making again and again.
This was really good! I only had Brussel sprouts and Halloumi in the fridge, so I just used those. I took it out of the oven after 30 minutes because the sprouts and halloumi were totally charred by then. We thought it was super tasty and the dressing was delicious. The halloumi initially looked too burnt, but it was crispy on the outside and airy on the inside. I think my oven runs a little hot, so next time I’d lower the temp to 425 and check around 25-30 mins.