Most people don’t usually think to roast radishes. It is common to see radishes thinly sliced at salad bars or cut in larger pieces at taco stands. Sometimes you see thinly sliced daikon in pickled slaws, especially in Southeast Asian cuisine. Roasted radishes, though, are beautifully tender, golden brown, paleo- and vegan-friendly, and a perfect low-carb alternative to potatoes. They also tend to have a pungent, peppery flavor in their raw form, and it can be quite assertive to the uninitiated. Roasting them helps to tame that peppery flavory and transform it into a sweeter, caramelized turnip that is juicy and delicious.

You can roast most radishes, and they’ll become tender, sweeter, and slightly nutty after roasting. Classic red glove radishes (the bright red bulbs) are the most common varieties, although daikon is another common, albeit larger, radish. French breakfast radishes have an elongated shape and become slightly sweet when you roast them, either in the oven or the pan. Watermelon radishes are also ideal for roasting, especially when you cut them into wedges. Plus, the color of watermelon radishes is absolutely mesmerizing.

It is imperative how you cut the radishes for this recipe. You want to cut them in small wedges, otherwise they may not roast properly, or some parts may be hard and unpleasant to eat. Besides their delicious flavor, radishes are also full of various nutrients. Studies confirm that some nutrients in radishes may aid digestive health, but most of the research focuses on the antioxidant compounds. For example, some of the compounds work to protect the body from liver, colon, breast, lung, cervical, and lung cancers. Coenzyme Q10 (COQ10) in radishes also blocked the formation of diabetes in animals, but more human research is necessary to claim that it does this in humans.