This Cheesy Root Vegetable Gratin recipe might be one of my absolute favorites for This Cheesy Root Vegetable Gratin recipe might be one of my absolute favorites for fall and winter. It’s a great variation from the typical vegetable gratin. Usually vegetable gratins are made with a mixture of zucchini, tomato slices, and yellow squash, with some bread crumbs, cheese, and heavy cream mixed in. For our version we choose to focus on root vegetables, so beets, sweet potatoes, and parsnips. All of which are beautiful together because of the different colors! I know it’s a lot of peeling and slicing, but if you have a mandoline it’s makes the process so much easier. Plus, after you’re done slicing the vegetables, the rest of the dish is very easy to put together.
I love the subtly sweet and earthy flavors of this combination of root vegetables mixed together with the savory and salty shredded gruyère cheese, garlic, thyme, and heavy cream. It’s the perfect side dish to any thanksgiving, holiday or any cozy meal .
How to Make Our Cheesy Root Vegetable Gratin
Ingredients
Process
- Preheat oven.
- Grease baking dish with butter.
- Slice sweet potato, parsnips and beets into very thin rounds (using a mandoline is easiest) and transfer each vegetable to its own bowl.
- Pour heavy cream over each sweet potatoes and parsnips, and beets.
- Top each bowl of sliced vegetables with some grated Parmesan cheese and some minced thyme. Season each bowl generously with salt and black pepper and toss together until all vegetable slices are well coated.
- Pour remaining heavy cream into the greased baking dish and sprinkle with Parmesan and garlic.
- Grab a stack of sweet potatoes and line them standing up on a bias, at the top of the casserole dish.
- Follow the sweet potatoes with a row of parsnips, followed by a row of beets.
- Repeat with the remaining sweet potatoes, parsnips and beets, creating 6 rows of root vegetables.
- Season top of gratin with salt, black pepper and sprinkle of remaining Parmesan.
- Cover with aluminum foil and bake until vegetables are soft.
- Uncover gratin and top with shredded gruyère.
- Place gratin back into oven, uncovered, and continue to bake until vegetables are fork tender, cheese has melted and the top has lightly browned.
- Finish cheesy root vegetable gratin with a sprinkle of fresh thyme leaves. Serve.
Tools You Will Need
- sharp knife
- cutting board
- mixing bowls
- vegetable peeler
- measuring spoons
- liquid measuring cup
- dry measuring cup
- cheese grater
- mandoline (optional, but preferred)
- 3 quart baking dish
Tips and Tricks for Cheesy Root Vegetable Gratin Success
- Ensure all the vegetables are coated in cream so they don’t dry out. The beets should just be barely coated in cream because too much cream coating will result in them bleeding through the dish.
- The aluminum foil should be tightly wrapped around the baking dish to allow the dish to steam a little and for the vegetables to get tender before uncovering it.
- Wear gloves when handling beets to prevent them from staining your hands. If you do stain your hands, wash them with a blend of baking soda and warm water and vigorous rub them together. You may need a couple rounds of this process to completely remove the stains.
- Keeping the slices as uniform in thickness as possible will greatly help even cooking throughout the gratin.
- Using a mandoline will not only ensure even thickness, but will also reduce the prep time. If you don’t have a mandoline a very sharp knife is the next best thing we recommend.
FAQs
Covering this dish in the beginning will allow the vegetables to soften without drying the dish out. Once the vegetables get to a good point, uncovering them will allow the top of the gratin brown and crisp up, while allowing some of the excess liquid to thicken/evaporate.
Yes! This dish can be made up to a day ahead of time and refrigerated, tightly wrapped in foil. When ready to bake, just place the covered gratin in the oven, adding about an extra 5-7 minutes of baking time to the dish (covered).
Just know that if you prep this dish ahead of time, you run the risk of the beets bleeding from sitting in the cream. This won’t effect the flavor at all, but it’ll change the look of this dish.
The culprit was most likely the amount of cream/liquid used. We made sure to scale back on the amount of cream used to toss with the beets as well as the cream that sits in the bottom of the baking dish.
You really want to make sure the sliced beets are just barely coated in liquid to ensure they don’t dry out while baking. You also want to make sure the bottom layer of your baking dish is just coated with a thin layer of cream and sprinkled with Parmesan. The amount of cream used may vary just a little bit, depending on the surface area of the baking dish you’re using, so it’s best to eyeball this.
We add a small range for each vegetable because not all 3 quart baking dishes are oval and we encourage you to use what you have on hand (which would change the amount of surface area there is).
This plus the fact that the thickness of the sliced vegetables, the size of each vegetable themselves, and the degree of the bias in which the sliced vegetables are placed into the baking dish will all vary slightly from person to person, effecting the number of vegetables needed.
The nutrition facts are based on the lowest number vegetables in each range in the ingredient list.
Variations for Cheesy Root Vegetable Gratin
- Chives, green onion, sage, and rosemary or a combination of herbs make a great alternative to the fresh thyme.
- Shredded fontina, Swiss, comté, gouda, and mild cheddar cheese all make great cheese alternatives for gruyere.
- Whole milk or half and half can be used in place of cream, although there will be more liquid pooled in the bottom of the gratin after it’s baked.
- Turnips and rutabaga make great root vegetable alternatives for any of the three used in this recipe.
What to Serve with Our Cheesy Root Vegetable Gratin
- Citrus Dry Brine Turkey
- Spatchcock Chicken
- Standing Rib Roast
- Oven Baked Chicken Thighs
- Garlic Butter Lamb Chops
- Pork Belly Porchetta
If you’re looking for other delicious thanksgiving or holiday side dishes, you can head on over to our Holiday Headquarters for some of our favorite ones! Enjoy!
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Cheesy Root Vegetable Gratin
INGREDIENTS
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter softened
- 1-2 long sweet potatoes (about 2 inches thick), peeled
- 3-4 large parsnips, ends trimmed and peeled
- 3-5 small beets, peeled
- 14 tablespoons heavy cream, divided (whole milk is fine, but mixture won't thicken as much or be as creamy)
- 4 ounces grated Parmesan, divided
- 1 tablespoon fresh minced thyme, divided plus more for garnish
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 ounce shredded gruyere
- salt and pepper to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 400˚F. Grease a 3 quart baking dish with butter.
- Slice sweet potato, parsnips and beets into very thin rounds (using a mandoline is easiest) and transfer each vegetable to its own bowl.
- Pour 4 tablespoons cream over each sweet potatoes and parsnips, and 2 tablespoons cream over beets. Top each bowl of sliced vegetables with ½ ounce grated Parmesan and 1 teaspoon minced thyme. Season each bowl generously with salt and pepper and toss together until all vegetable slices are well coated.
- Pour remaining 1/4 cup cream into the bottom of a 3 quart (oval) baking dish and sprinkle with ½ ounce of Parmesan and minced garlic.
- Grab a stack of sweet potatoes and line them standing up on a bias, at the top of the baking dish. Follow the sweet potato with a row of parsnips, followed by a row of beets. Repeat with the remaining sweet potatoes, parsnips and beets, creating 6 rows of root vegetables.
- Season top of gratin with salt, pepper and sprinkle of remaining Parmesan.
- Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes or until vegetables are soft.
- Uncover gratin and top with shredded gruyere.
- Place gratin back into oven, uncovered, and continue to bake for an additional 18 to 20 minutes or until vegetables are fork tender, cheese has melted and the top has lightly browned.
- Finish with a sprinkle of fresh thyme leaves. Serve.
NOTES
- This dish can be made up to a day ahead of time and refrigerated, tightly wrapped in foil. When ready to bake, just place the covered gratin in the oven, adding about an extra 5-7 minutes of baking time to the dish (covered).
**Just know that if you prep this dish ahead of time, you run the risk of the beets bleeding from sitting in the cream. This won’t effect the flavor at all, but it’ll change the look of this dish.** - To prevent the beets from bleeding:
- Make sure the peeled and sliced beets are just barely coated in cream to ensure they don’t dry out while baking.
- You also want to make sure the bottom layer of your baking dish is just coated with a thin layer of cream and sprinkled with Parmesan. The amount of cream used may vary just a little bit, depending on the surface area of the baking dish you’re using, so it’s best to eyeball this.
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What size oval dish or pan should all of this be placed in. I am making it now but I think I am using too small of a pan because it is taking longer than 30 minutes.
What could you use as a healthy option to the cream
Thanks
You could use a whole or low fat milk, but i wouldn’t use fat-free as the dish won’t really come together
Hullo, just a suggestion – there is a baked Greek potato dish, layered with feta, olives, rosemary and instead of cream, we use a vegetable stock. It works really well if you can’t use dairy, and I thought it might also work with these veg?
I used a 2qt oval corningware ceramic dish as opposed to a Oval Baking Tray (because I didn’t have one on-hand)… Did not work as well as I thought for 2 reasons. One, because the extra depth meant that all the required cream pooled and left me with half-vegetable soup below the surface of the veggie rounds. Two, all the veggie rounds did not fit in the dish; I had to use another dish to make a mini version of this. I haven’t tried the mini yet, but I have a feeling it will be better than the large one because there was less of a cream pool at the bottom. Other than that, the dish was surprisingly satisfying.
This recipe keeps coming to me every week. How do I break this loop?
I want to make this for Easter. Do you pour the leftover cream from each bowl back into the main serving dish with the other cream?
The cream that the vegetables are originally coated in are discarded to ensure the entire dish doesn’t become discolored (specifically from the beet infused cream)
I made this for Valentine’s Day. I added golden beets as well. It turned out creamier then I thought but my honey loved it. Will definitely be making it again.
This looks lovely but I was wondering if the parsnip might go off colour if i make it ahead of time. I thought the other vegetables would be ok.
I think the parsnips will be fine if made a day ahead of time!
Do you think it would be okay to leave the veg soaking in the cream mixture overnight?
I think that should be fine, but i would soak the vegetables separately to make sure the beets don’t bleed over everything!
Hi! I made this and it didn’t cook through even spending twice the amount of time in the oven. The beets stayed hard. Sweet potatoes finally got soft. Did anyone else have this issue? The flavors were delicious, though.
Yes! They were practically cold still! Please refine this so it has a more accurate cooktime.
A lot of things can effect this like the depth of baking dish and whether the oven runs hot or cold and even how thick or thin the oven runs
I made this for Christmas dinner in a lovely French oval baking dish my dad bought for my mom probably 30 years ago. It looked and tasted wonderful.
Do all the veggies cook evely soft during the given time? In my experience bertroots cook much longer than sweet potatoes, theough I haven’t tried to cook them sliced this fine, only whole in a foil..
With them all sliced into very thin rounds, they do cook evenly!
This looks delicious! Definitely going on my meal plan soon.
This recipe was SO delish and beautiful. We didn’t have Gruyere on hand so I subbed Raclette. This is one of my new fave recipes. Thank you.
How many people do you think this would serve? It looks lovely!
I would say about 6 to 8 people
i think its just perfect,i wouldn’t change a thing.the pan ,the ingredients,its perfect..thank you
Some rutabaga sounds good.
Looks beautiful. Can you substitute potatoes for the turnips and can you substitute broccoli crowns for the beets?
Yes! love the idea of using broccoli crown for this!
Did you (or anyone who has made this) have issues with beet bleed? Any advice for avoiding it?
I actually didn’t have any issues with beet bleeding. They bled a little bit, when they were tossed in a mixing bowl with cream, but not while assembling or baking :)
Will try this weekend. Any idea of calorie intake per portion? I know it shouldn’t really matter but I thought I’d ask
Hi! So sorry, but we don’t do nutritional info for our recipes!
This looks so delicious. Do you think the cream could be substituted with something other than dairy. My kids can’t have that much dairy, since there is also cheese in it. I would love to make this.
Hi! You can use a cow dairy alternative like almond milk or cashew milk. You may need to drain some of the excess liquid that gathers at the bottom of the dish, once you uncover the gratin, but should still work out just fine!
Or possibly thicken the liquid?
Hi! I’ve read that you can substitute blended firm tofu for the heavy cream. That’s what I’m going to be trying today.
Can this made the day ahead of Thanksgiving and then just pop it in the oven?
Totally!
Can’t this dish be made ahead and then frozen?
Hm, I’m not sure. I get weird about freezing things (trying to be better about it)…i worry the potatoes may get mushy, once you reheat…but maybe not! Perhaps others who freeze dishes more often may have better insight!
Potatoes don’t freeze well at all. Their structure breaks down & becomes soupy.
Omit white potatoes only. Add rutabagas if desired. Cook completely, refrigerate until cold, cover with cling film, wrap with foil, and freeze. Thaw, remove cling film, replace foil, and heat. Bon ap!
Only par-bake this dish, it is better fresh but I did freeze it and finished the bake on the reheat.
I got a similar pan as a gift – Mauviel from Williams Sonoma.
Where did you get that pan?? It’s amazing, vintage?
Yes, vintage! :)
You might be able to find something pretty close at Home Goods..they have a great selection of cooking ware.
Personally, when I make this I will sub carrots for beets. Won’t be as colorful but it won’t suffer from beet bleed and I think I will like the flavors a bit more.
I would use both carrots and beets as well as potatoes, sweet and white.
Any tips for making sure that the colors don’t bleed and to ensure that all elements cook evenly?
Cut beets first, then soak your beets in cold water, drain and pat dry. Or grow or buy rainbow beets, they don’t bleed. You will be much happier with the results.
Actually, quite on accident I left the cut beets out and they dried a little bit and they did not bleed.