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Pan-Roasted Asparagus with Sweet-Spicy Tahini Dressing
In this quick and easy method for basic pan-roasted asparagus, an initial blast over high heat gives the spears a light char to develop sweet, nutty flavor, then covered cooking with a little water renders the spears perfectly crisp-tender. Serve the asparagus unadorned straight from the pan, or add any one of the following embellishments to dress it up. You will need a 12-inch skillet with a lid for this recipe.
4
Servings
Tip
Don't use extra-thick asparagus, as it requires longer cooking. Look for spears that are no larger than ½ inch in diameter. But don't use ultra-thin asparagus, either, which will end up overdone.
15 minutes
Ingredients
-
2
medium garlic cloves (minced)
Directions
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01In a large bowl, whisk together 2 medium garlic cloves (minced) and 1 tablespoon unseasoned rice vinegar. Set aside for about 5 minutes to allow the garlic to mellow, then whisk in 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons tahini, 1 tablespoon packed light or dark brown sugar and 1 to 3 teaspoons chili oil.
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We use a lot of tahini in our kitchen so anything with that as a prime ingredient gets my attention. I cut the soy sauce back by more than half simply because I prefer a 'kiss' of it rather than a big 'smooch' in almost all things. Otherwise made per recipe and I found I needed bit of water to thin this to the right viscosity to pour / toss with the asparagus to combine. As notes: 1) We made the full recipe of this but were using only 1 pound of asparagus whereas the full recipe for that is 2 pounds. I think if you are using 2 pounds of asparagus, you'll want to double this sauce recipe which seems like it should scale up very easily. 2) We weren't particularly fans of pairing this sauce with the asparagus - something about flavors and textures together that wasn't a favorite. But we liked this sauce / dressing very much on its' own and we will make it again as we can imagine all kinds of uses such as in noodle salads with raw veg, as a dip for raw veg, in rice salads...