How Long to Cook Carrots
The amount of time it takes to cook carrots all depends on how big your pieces are:
- Sliced Carrots: 4 to 5 minutes
- Baby Carrots: 6 to 7 minutes
- Whole Carrots: 10 to 15 minutes
This assumes that you're boiling your carrots, one of the simplest ways to cook them.
However, before you can cook your carrots, there is some prep work to be done. Before you boil your carrots, make sure that you first rinse them under running water and use a towel or paper towel to remove any dirt and debris. Then, use a vegetable peeler to remove the outer skin from the carrot. If you want to cut up your carrots into pieces, now is the time for that. Typically, carrots are sliced about a quarter-inch thick. Cutting the carrots at an angle leads to a better presentation, but they'll taste the same no matter how you cut them.
Regardless of how your carrots are sliced, all you have to do is put them in boiling, salted water for the indicated amount of time, then drain the water. Poke the carrots with a fork periodically while they are being boiled: Once the thickest part of the biggest piece is easy to poke through, the carrots are done!