This will change the way you think about turnips. The greens and root pair excellently and give a little more glorious color and nutrition to the Turnip Gratin dish.
Why this recipe works!
Chili spice and lemon peel light up the tastebuds in the most delectable ways while coconut cream and homemade broth make this dish just as savory and comforting as you would hope.
Turnips are cold season vegetables so they are often available in spring and in the fall. This is a great way to use that garden harvest while preparing for colder temperatures!
I hope the next time you get a bunch of turnips, you consider roasting them to gratin perfection.
The Turnip Gratin Ingredients
Turnips!
Turnips are a root vegetable that really deserves more attention than they get. They are white bulbs, sometimes with a purple hue on the top of the turnip with long edible greens attached.
The greens are one of the best sources for Vitamin A and can be cooked on their own similar to chard or collard greens and add additional nutrition and color to this dish.
The turnips themselves can be used in many recipes that call for potatoes, but they are lower in calories and higher in fiber. In short, turnips taste like woodier potatoes when cooked but they are nutritionally closer to a slightly sweet cauliflower.
If you're a turnip convert, try these amazing Turnip Fritters! I also love them in this turnip broth bowl and turnip curry.
Mandolin the turnips and sweet potatoes into thin slices
For the gratin, you'll mandolin both the turnips and the sweet potatoes into thin slices.
Cheese
I don't often cook with cheese on this website, and that's mostly because eliminating dairy from my diet has been massively beneficial for my skin, gut, microbiome, yeast infections, and allergies.
But when I do eat cheese, I make it really high quality which tends to reduce some of the negative symptoms some people can experience with cheese.
What qualities to look for in cheese
The two qualities I look for are:
- pasture-raised grass fed cows
- organic.
Why doe this matter?
I don't want unhealthy cows unnaturally eating grain or pumped with hormones and pesticides because that negatively impacts their milk.
This turns into cheese with those negative compounds and the cows' own inflammation factors.
Choosing Cheddar and Mozzarella
It's easiest to consistently find raw cheddar and mozzarella that fit these criteria, which is the main driver of using them here. Cheddar gives that sharp tangy flavor while mozzarella gives a creamy texture and that visual of cheese pulling apart!
This recipe also uses less cheese than the typical augratin because I believe that cheese should be an accent, not a main course.
Grate the cheese for this dish
The Layering - most important step
Layering the ingredients in the right way turns it from a random casserole to a layered au gratin.
Here are the Turnip Gratin Layers in Order from Bottom to Top
The quantities, like 1/2 or 3/4 mean that you should use 1/2 or 3/4 of the total amount called for in the recipe.
When I say the remaining 1/2 or remaining 1/4, that means you should use what's left and it should be about 1/2 or 1/4 of the total amount called for in the recipe, respectively.
The Turnip Gratin Layers
- 1 tbsp melted coconut oil - melted evenly on bottom of cast iron skillet
- 1/2 of sweet potato rounds
- 1.2 of turnip rounds
- 1/2 of salt/thyme/pepper/chili mix
- 1/2 garlic
- 1/2 onion
- 1/2 lemon rind
- 1/2 of each cheese
- 3/4 greens
- 3/4 coconut cream
- 3/4 broth
- Remaining 1/2 sweet potato rounds
- Remaining 1/2 turnip rounds
- Remaining 1/4 of turnip greens
- Remaining 1/2 garlic
- Remaining 1/2 onions
- Remaining 1/4 coconut cream
- Remaining 1/2 lemon
- Remaining 1/2 cheese
- Remaining 1/2 salt/thyme/pepper/chili mix
- Remaining 1/4 broth
- Remaining 1 tbsp coconut oil
If you love this one-dash cast-iron skillet, you might also love Rhubarb Chicken skillet!
Turnip Gratin
Equipment
- Oven
- 10 1/4 inch Cast Iron Skillet
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp coconut oil can sub pastured butter
- 1 bunch turnips root and greens
- 1 Japanese sweet potato
- 3 sprigs thyme
- 1 tsp real salt
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp red chili powder
- 1/2 cup white onion diced
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp grated lemon rind
- 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese organic and grass-fed
- 1/2 cup grated mozzarella organic and grass-fed
- 1 cup coconut cream about the amount of cream in one can - can replace with whipping cream
- 1 cup broth chicken bone broth or vegetable broth for vegetarian
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425
- Melt coconut oil in the bottom of cast iron skillet and make sure it evenly coats the bottom of the pan
- Wash turnips and separate greens from roots, discarding stemmy parts and root ends
- Mandolin the potato and turnips on setting 2, or 1/8 inch thick
- Destem thyme and mix with salt, black pepper, and chili powder to make the spice mix
- Mince garlic and grate lemon rind
- Begin layering on top of the coconut oil in this order, using half of the total ingredients each time except where noted otherwise: sweet potato rounds, turnip rounds, spice mix, garlic, onion, lemon rind, cheeses, 3/4 greens, 3/4 coconut cream, 3/4 broth, sweet potato, turnip, greens, onion, garlic, coconut cream, lemon rind, cheese, spice mix, broth, coconut oil
- Bake for 20 minutes. It should be bubbling at the end
- Broil at 425 for 5-7 minutes or until browned.
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
This nutrition information does not tell the whole story of food's nutritional value! Make sure to use your gut intuition on what your body needs, eat your veggies and get 30 plants a week for optimal gut health. This nutritional data is calculated based on above values and standard brands. This information may vary.
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