Trader Joe’s Parsnips

We’ll be honest, parsnips are the kind of veggies we don’t often buy. There’s really only one or two times a year that you’ll find them in our shopping cart, and it’s probably because a soup or stew recipe calls for it. Maybe they just need a better marketing campaign. Or a good scandal (#Parsnipocalypse??). We digress…

Point is, the parsnip is an oft underutilized root vegetable, but it has a surprising sweetness and snap to it, and it compliments carrots and other roasted vegetables nicely. We used ours in a Winter Vegetable Soup with delicious results (recipe from Cooks.com here).

They soaked up the flavoring of the beef broth and spices, and gave the soup a nutty, sweet taste that tied the dish together perfectly.

Worth noting, these parsnips weren’t organic – we couldn’t find the organic equivalent at our local TJ’s. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as parsnips aren’t on EWG’s Dirty Dozen or Clean Fifteen (a handy resource to keep on hand while shopping).

All told, we liked these Trader Joe’s Parsnips. They were clean, well sized, firm, ripe, and at $1.79, a good deal. Maybe this is the year of the Parsnip afterall.