Air Fryer Roasted Turnips

With roughly one third of the carbs, turnips make a great low carb potato substitute. In the case of these air fryer roasted turnips, we have a peppery garlic parmesan side dish you could plug in for roasted potatoes. This is an easy recipe, only calling for turnips, olive oil, grated parmesan, and a handful of spices you should have in the pantry. Let’s get frying!

How to Make Air Fryer Roasted Turnips

Start with a pound and a half of turnips. At the time of this writing (November), turnips are in season and perfect for mashing, sautéing, roasting, and more. Here’s a tip on shopping for turnips:

Choose small turnips, which will be the youngest, with the sweetest flavor and best texture. They should be heavy for their size and firm, without any nicks or cuts. If the greens are attached, they should be brightly colored and fresh.

Danielle Walsh, Bon Appetit

You’ll want to scrub, peel, and cut into equal bite-size pieces for even cooking. Toss the turnips in olive oil, salt and pepper, and add to an air fryer basket. I typically recommend not adding salt before roasting vegetables, as it brings out moisture. In this case, it speeds up the cook and softens the turnips faster. And since you’ll add grated parmesan for the crispy roasted factor in a second stint in the air fryer, it’s all good.

You want the turnips to soften and slightly brown in places, particularly the bottoms and pieces in contact with the air fryer basket. Once they’re at that point, season and air fry again until crispy golden brown.

Roasted Turnips Seasoning Ideas

The world is your oyster when it comes to seasoning your air fryer roasted turnips. Garlic parmesan is just my default seasoning for recipes like my roasted carrot sticks, air fryer roasted radishes, or air fryer cauliflower gnocchi. Who doesn’t love the flavor combo? And the grated parmesan helps add crispy bits you might miss out on otherwise.

Roasted turnips have a natural sweetness that plays well with tons of flavors.

Good flavor pairings include apples, bacon, sage, mustard, and spices like cumin and coriander.

Fine Cooking

A great spin might be working turnips into our maple bacon air fryer sweet potatoes recipe. The bacon cooks right alongside the vegetables to save time and impart its bacon goodness. You could also dice your turnips a bit smaller, keep it simple with salt and pepper, maybe add bacon, and turn your roasted turnips into a breakfast hash right in the air fryer by adding eggs for 3-5 minutes at the end.

I’m curious to see what you come up with or hear what you think about the garlic parmesan version. Hopefully this opens your eyes to the possibilities of lower carb potato substitutes. I have a list of 9 keto potato substitutes with 50 ways to use them, in case you’re hungry for more.

If you have a question about these air fryer turnips I forgot to cover, drop it in the comments at the bottom of this post. Otherwise, enjoy!