Vegetable Dishes
Parmesan Roasted Broccoli
The roasted broccoli recipe the internet calls "the best broccoli of your life": florets roasted hot until crisp at the edges, then tossed with lemon, garlic, toasted pine nuts, Parmesan and basil. Simple variations and a little history below.
- Serves 4
- Prep 10 min
- Cook about 20 min
- American
Method
Heat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan), 425°F, gas 7, and put a large baking tray in to heat up.
Cut the broccoli into florets about 4 cm (1½ in) across, leaving a little stalk on each, and cut larger ones in half through the stalk so they have a flat side. Peel the thick main stalk and slice it into 5 mm (¼ in) coins. Make sure the broccoli is dry: wet florets steam instead of browning.
Toss the broccoli with 3 tablespoons of the oil, ½ teaspoon salt and some pepper. Carefully take out the hot tray and spread the broccoli over it in a single layer, cut sides down, with space between the pieces (use two trays if needed).
Roast for 10 minutes. Scatter over the sliced garlic, toss and roast for another 8–12 minutes, until the florets are tender and the tips and cut sides are deep golden brown and crisp in places. The garlic should be golden, not dark.
While the broccoli roasts, toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan over a medium heat for 2–3 minutes, shaking the pan, until golden. Tip them out straight away.
As soon as the broccoli comes out of the oven, toss it on the tray with the lemon zest, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, the remaining tablespoon of oil, the pine nuts, Parmesan and basil. Taste, add more lemon juice or salt if needed, and serve hot.
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Variations
Five ways to change it. Each serves 4 and uses the same method unless it says otherwise.
Caesar-style
Mash 2 anchovy fillets with 1 small garlic clove, the lemon juice and 2 tablespoons olive oil, and toss with the hot broccoli instead of the basil and pine nuts; finish with the Parmesan and a handful of toasted breadcrumbs.
Chilli and lemon (vegan)
Leave out the Parmesan. Add ½ teaspoon chilli flakes with the garlic and finish with extra lemon zest, a pinch of flaky salt and the toasted pine nuts or flaked almonds.
Sesame and soy
Roast with vegetable oil instead of olive oil. Toss the hot broccoli with 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil, 1 teaspoon honey and 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds instead of the lemon, Parmesan and basil.
Tenderstem or purple sprouting broccoli
Use 400 g (14 oz) whole spears, halved lengthways if thick. They cook faster: roast for 6 minutes, add the garlic and roast for 5–6 minutes more.
Half and half with cauliflower
Use 1 head of broccoli and ½ cauliflower, cut into florets of the same size; the cauliflower may need 5 minutes longer.
Useful kit
- Heavy rimmed baking tray: a heavy tray holds the heat and does not warp in a hot oven. Amazon UK · Amazon US
- Microplane zester: for fine lemon zest and Parmesan. Amazon UK · Amazon US
As an Amazon Associate Cookeryonline earns from qualifying purchases.
See also
Chef’s notes
- High heat and space are the secret. At 220°C the broccoli browns and turns sweet and nutty before it has time to go soft and sulphurous; crowded on a tray it steams. Preheating the tray, as Serious Eats does, starts the browning straight away.
- Adding the garlic halfway through is our only change to Ina Garten’s method: thin slices can burn in 20 minutes at this heat and turn bitter.
- Serve it with roast chicken, steak, salmon or a simple pasta; leftovers are good cold in a salad or warmed through and stirred into pasta.
- Vegan or dairy-free: leave out the Parmesan and add a pinch of chilli flakes and a little extra lemon zest.
A little history: the best broccoli of your life
Broccoli is Italian, in name and origin. The word is the plural of broccolo, the flowering top of a cabbage, from brocco, a sprout or shoot. The vegetable was bred from the wild cabbage around the Mediterranean, most likely in southern Italy or Sicily; it had spread to northern Europe by the 18th century and was taken to North America by Italian immigrants in the 19th. The big-headed broccoli in our shops is calabrese, named after Calabria.
Roasting it at a high heat is a modern idea that caught on in the 2000s. This recipe is Ina Garten’s "Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli" from her book Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics. In November 2008 the food blogger Adam Roberts wrote it up on The Amateur Gourmet as "The Best Broccoli of Your Life", promising that one person liked it more than steak.
According to Food52, which retold the story in its Genius Recipes column, the post became the most popular in the blog’s history and for a while was the top Google result for "broccoli recipe". Food52 also lists Garten’s recipe among its 52 most popular recipes of all time, and as its most popular broccoli recipe.
Sources for these notes
For the history above and the advice in the notes.
- Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten): Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli
- Food52 (Kristen Miglore, Genius Recipes): Will This Be the Best Broccoli of Your Life? (Adam Roberts, The Amateur Gourmet, November 2008)
- Food52: 52 Most Popular Recipes of All Time, Ranked (No. 44, Ina Garten’s Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli)
- Food52: Our most popular broccoli recipe comes from Ina Garten
- The Amateur Gourmet (Adam Roberts): The Best Broccoli of Your Life, November 2008
- Online Etymology Dictionary: broccoli
- Stansell and Björkman, From landrace to modern hybrid broccoli, Horticulture Research 7, 159 (2020): origin in Italy, spread to northern Europe and North America
- Wikipedia: Broccoli (calabrese named after Calabria; Tenderstem is broccoli crossed with kai-lan)
How this recipe was developed
Ina Garten’s Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli is the most-shared broccoli recipe on the web. We kept its finish of lemon, pine nuts, Parmesan and basil, scaled it for 4, and borrowed two techniques from Serious Eats to make it more reliable in a home oven.
- Finish. Lemon zest and juice, toasted pine nuts, Parmesan and basil tossed in straight from the oven: Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa).
- Heat. 220°C / 425°F: Ina Garten; preheated tray and dry florets with a flat cut side for browning: J. Kenji López-Alt (Serious Eats, who goes to 260°C / 500°F).
- Garlic later. Garten roasts the garlic from the start; we add it after 10 minutes so it does not burn.
- Quantity. Two heads (about 700 g) for 4 as a side: Serious Eats uses 450 g of florets for 4; Garten 1.8–2.3 kg for 6.
- Popular versions compared. Allrecipes’ Roasted Garlic Lemon Broccoli (1,547 ratings) and Easy Roasted Broccoli use the same high-heat method.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 1 November 2026):
- Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa): Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli
- Serious Eats (J. Kenji López-Alt): Easy Roasted Broccoli
- Food52 (Kristen Miglore): Genius Recipes: the best broccoli of your life
- Allrecipes (Allrecipes community): Roasted Garlic Lemon Broccoli (1,547 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.