We Try It: Martha Stewart’s Crisp Brussels Sprout Leaves

Oh my god, y’all.

I love Brussels sprouts. So much that I may have overdone it with my order last time I got Fresh Direct, and I now have roughly a metric ton of them to use before they go bad.

(Shopping for one is hard.)

I came across a recipe for crispy Brussels sprout leaves thanks to former stock-market-secret-holder and human Pinterest feed Martha Stewart. I’m sure you are all aware that it’s scientific fact that the most delicious part of Brussels sprouts are the leaves that fall off when you’re roasting or sauteing them and get really crunchy. So an entire dish made of these seems perfect.

The beauty is that it’s pretty customizable. I didn’t use lemon (because I didn’t have any), but I decided to add shallots since a) I also needed to use those up before they went bad and b) adding anything remotely related to an onion while roasting is always a good idea. I also forgot about the cheese, so a few minutes into roasting I opened the oven and dumped it on top — and it was the cheap Kraft parmesan from a plastic shaker, not freshly grated Romano. Sorry, Martha. You could substitute nutritional yeast if you want to make this vegan.

Overall, this is a really delicious recipe, and despite the labor-intensiveness of pulling the sprouts apart, it’s really easy. And anything you mix up by shaking in a bag is always fun to make. I might have used a lower heat and roasted them a little longer so they’d cook more evenly, but that’s because my oven kind of sucks. The recipe’s time and temperature probably work for people with normal ovens.

The only problem here is deciding if the gut-wrenching agony of that many cruciferous vegetables in one sitting is worth the deliciousness (spoiler alert: it’s not, and I’m hoping these reheat well). Serves six my left boob, Martha.