Large carrots for cooking

[malterod]

I want to breed a cooking carrot, or perhaps two types of it. The motivation came from a chef colleague who asked me: Malte, can you get carrots that have more taste and are not just sweet? He found most carrots are too dull.

I wonder whether this is because of the general trend in plant breeding to focus on sweetness, not have so many other nutrients (flavor) and of course also breed for volume and productivity (sometimes equals high water content). My assumption is many carrots have been developed to also be used as raw, snack carrots. Good snack carrot don’t necessarily make good cooking carrots.

When chefs use carrots they mostly cook with them - blanch, steam, simmer or puré them. So I want to focus on a carrot that taste good for those conditions.

My criteria for a good cooking carrot is:

• Taste: Highly aromatic, lots of carrot flavor and also other notes. Can be sweet, but not just sweet, and some bitterness is okay, if it makes the flavor more interesting.

As for shape, it might make sense to divide it into two different types:

• Blanching carrot. These are the types you would serve whole or halved. Shapes can be all kinds - long, thin, conical, blocky etc. (think Danvers, Chantenay, Nantaise types).
• Huge cooking type. These are the types you would either cut into dice for a soffrito or stew or chunks for puré. The bigger the easier to prepare in the kitchen. Many of the old giant carrots, that are sometimes pejoratively called “fodder carrots”, actually taste very good. Examples are Jaune de Doubs, Geante Rouge, Kämpe etc).

General carrot criteria I will also select for

• Single, uniform taproot
• No or very little damage from carrot (Chamaepsila rosae)

[malterod]

2023
I grew an assortment of named varieties. We did a taste selection with the students and I picked out the best ones to grow for seed the next year.

[malterod]

2024

I grew a carrot grex from @Logan together with various named varieties again. My seed from the carrot in 2023 also came to seed. That grex I mixed with Vivi’s grex as well as another colleague’s own grex, all of them about 7 different varieties each crossed, into a supergrex which we distributed at Future Heirloom.

I am now distributing this grex within the Danish seed saver association, which is otherwise mostly focused on inbred heirlooms. I picked a name for the grex, because names are an important boundary in those communities. The association has a few members that have grown more diverse varieties through the years, among them some of Joseph’s landraces, and I think of these members as crucial bridges.You can read about the supergrex here in the database of the association (in Danish).

At that event we also did a carrot tasting with those carrot grexes as well as some carrots from various participants (people were invited to bring with them good carrots). I saved the best scoring roots to grow to seed.

Here are some images from the pumpkin tasting that same day:

[malterod]

2025

Here are the winner roots from 2024 flowering summer 2025.

The roots I grew this year was mostly seeded from the Future Heirloom Supergrex. I grew 60 m2 in a nutrient poor, sandy loam soil. I could use a sprinkler for germination and drip irrigation during the drought in summer. I didn’t fertilize the soil, which was already pretty poor in nutrients. We weeded once in the beginning of germination and a selective weeding after weeds started competing more. Otherwise, the carrot would have to fend for themselves.

Carrot bed beginnning of august.

I dug up around 200 carrots and made the students do a visual selection first (size, damage from carrot fly, uniform taproot). We got that down to 40 roots. Here are some of them:

The roots that made it had an overweight of conical shapes, which I’m happy with as they can be developed both into the ‘Huge cooking carrots’ as well as the more varied ‘Blanching carrot’.

From the 40 roots, I cut thin slices and steamed those for 5 minutes. Put them on trays and then we did a tasting. Here are some of the tasting tables.

The students score each root 1-10 and possibly note down taste, consistency, overall impression. I use those qualitative data to get an idea of what they like and sometimes new ideas pop up when we have conversation about the results.

One root was way above the rest and was easily top scorer. Interestingly, it had more fruity or berry notes, which I find promising.

[Julied]

I love reading your breeding stories, Malte! The kitchen being as important as the garden.

Looking at your last few photos, are you replanting those carrot stumps for seed? I thought they had to be much longer. Do you mind explaining your process for replanting the selected carrots? (Storage, timing, etc)

So far, I’ve only been selecting mine visually, storing them in the fridge and replanting in the spring but I’d like to find a better way.

[malterod]

Looking at your last few photos, are you replanting those carrot stumps for seed? I thought they had to be much longer. Do you mind explaining your process for replanting the selected carrots? (Storage, timing, etc)

Yes, I’ll replant those stumps for going to seed. Obviously, the larger storage organ you have, the more energy for producing a big umbellifer with lots of flowers. If I was tasting alone or only with a few people, I could shave off less of the root. It will be enough to get the plant going and it will also make new fibrous roots to power the flower shoot, so enough to get seed.

My process after the tasting is normally to just plant the roots where they will grow next year. Most winters here are mild enough that most carrots seem to survive. Perhaps a few will die, but generally, I haven’t had any problems as long as the soil is free-draining.

Last year I stored them in buckets filled with sand in a shed that is frost-free. I place the roots correct way down so I allow the root to set a top shoot early in the season if it wants to. I will do the same this year too, so I can decide where to have my seed bed in the spring. When I get the time in early spring, I then plant them out.

[Bizarro (Joseph)]

I was today years old when I learned this top cutting re-rooting/growing carrot trick! <insert cosmic brain expanding and bursting into luminescent stars gif here>. Like whuuuuu? I used to do that all the time planting piña in the tropics - I never thought to do this with rooting crops like carrots! I imagine celeriac may also prove worthy to this end? Beets? Are there others?!? Errrr merrr gerrrrd. I only just began to earnestly plant carrots (my daughter, it turns out loves them boiled and then with sea salt and butter). My world just got quite a bit better and quite a bit more interesting. Thank you for sharing!

[malterod]

Yes, most root crops in my climate can be taste sampled and replanted. With umbellifers, they usually have a taproot and can be treated like carrots. Celeriac should be obvious also (cut at the root end and save the top end). Beets are the same. Sunchokes many people know root from fragments. Potatoes are commonly divided to make more clones (and usually you have more than one tuber!).

[Pascal]

Perhaps it’s already in the named varieties you trialled, but from what I’ve read the variety ‘Rodelika’ should be especially tasty and very orange (carotenes!). I want to try it myself as well next year. It does have a lower yield (in KG/hectare) than most modern commercial carrot varieties, however in research from the Louis Bolk institute in the Netherlands it was found to have a much higher dry matter content (16,8%) and when compensated for that scores the same in dry matter/hectare then commercial ones. But then with a much better taste!

[malterod]

It might be but I wouldn’t know, since there’s at least 25 varieties crossed into the grex. But it is interesting to hear about this research. One of the ideas I had for the cooking carrot is to have much higher dry matter content, assuming that I would get more flavor that way. And since the texture criteria are different for blanching and especially for purée, the succulence you gain from high water content is not really as important. I also assume that a similar thing like what is called Grower’s paradox in pumpkin breeding would apply to carrots. (High productivity = low dry matter content. And high dry matter content = taste. Which means that productivity in terms of kg are inversely related to flavor).

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

@malterod

I also assume that a similar thing like what is called Grower’s paradox in pumpkin breeding would apply to carrots. (High productivity = low dry matter content. And high dry matter content = taste. Which means that productivity in terms of kg are inversely related to flavor).

This not only genetics, but also (maybe even mostly in most cases) about care and conditions that make them grow more watery than under normal cultivation. I also suspect some varieties might respond better grown this way, but under more normal conditions might make similar dry matter content as some “better tasting” varieties. There must be some relation to size of the variety, but that might not be huge overall.

[Pascal]

I believe this paradox is not applicable to all species. The same article I read that had the info about the Rodelika carrot also states that for example zucchini and parsnips will combine high yield with great taste and high dry matter content all together. But with carrots and indeed pumpkins this doesn’t seem the case.

But as Jesse accurately states, care and growing conditions also matter. Take the same variety of a species and grow it in different fields and the nutritional value can differ quite a lot. I’ve seen examples of things like copper or zinc content being more than double or even quadruple the amount just by be grown by a different organic farmer. So taking good care of your soil and plants is perhaps equally or even more important then genetics alone. But for the best quality food you will need both of course.

[malterod]

On the subject of nutrient density caused by soil conditions vs. genetics, @julia.dakin has a great video about that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iYPgEvxFm0

The general rule seems to be that yes, soil conditions does affect nutrient density. But much much less that genetics.

[malterod]

I had an idea for a name today. In Danish, we have an expression. “Spille Kong gulerod” (Play King carrot) is something you can say to someone that is coming across as having a bit too high self-regard and arrogance. Usually said in a joking and teasing way. I think “Kong gulerod” (King carrot) could be a fun name for a huge cooking carrot. And I do not mind the negative associations. It will keep me accountable that the carrot would need to be really tasty so as not to become object of the obvious ridicule that it is just trying to impress but actually is just hot air. I like contradictions like that. Most of all it is just an old expression worthy of receiving.

[malterod]

Harvested about 500 roots and saved the best, about 60-70 roots, from visual criteria. Forgot to take picture of the ones we saved. We’ll use those for a tasting at an event where up to 200 guests will come and at the entrance will be met with a long line of carrots to taste and score. Looking forward to select the winners from that day!

Here are two boxes of the ones we visually selected against. The students like to use these cute baby roots.

[malterod]

Just rewatching this Carrot breeding video again and wanted to link to it.

Lots to learn about which colors are easy to get into a population (white and yellow) and which are more difficult (orange and red). And how you can maintain them long-term. Interestingly, the genes coding for purple are independent from those carotenoids, which is why you can get purple roots with either white, yellow, orange, red backgrounds.

I also learned that two traits are very difficult to select against once they are in your population: green shoulders and yellow core. But that you can cross your population with a type that doesn’t have the trait and then select against it.

[malterod]

I learned that the reason why red and purple carrots often are more strongly flavored has to do with them being introduced from places where they usually cooked with them. So in those places, they usually didn’t select for their raw flavor. This is similar to what I want to do. Conversely, most of European and American breeding seem to focus way more on raw flavor. Raw, I often find purple carrots tasting too much of turpentine, sometimes a bit soapy too. I haven’t compared this flavor raw vs. cooked and am curious now. Maybe I should introduce genetics from places that have traditionally bred carrots for cooking.

[Anita]

Thank you for the interesting link! Before I treated all colours the same, but I guess I’ll start to select mildly against white and yellow so that they don’t overpower the population.

I’m also super interested in carrots for cooking, because I mostly grow them to throw them into stews in the autumn and winter, so I guess I should start taste testing with cooked or roasted carrot pieces, even if that’s some extra work.

[malterod]

Second tasting of carrots, 2025

Last week we had a big event with +200 guests and I brought carrots with me to taste. This is the largest tasting for selection I’ve done so far, so it also tested my mise-en-place and ability to get lots of people, one after the other, to understand the exercise.

Here are the 50 roots I chose

I use a mandoline to cut thin slices. I didn’t want to run out fast. Later I learned there was more than enough and the slices stick together, so they end up eating several everytime unless you plate them well.

I liked the color on this one. Pale pink. Hard to get on photo.

Pale purple and orange

Numbers are really important to not lose track of which root correspond to which taste sample. I used marking tape, which I learned gets really difficult with wet or humid roots. After the roots dry up a bit it gets easier.

I take photos like this during the process as a backup. If the tape gets lost (and it did for some too-humid roots), I can reconstruct the numbers via the photos.

I prepped them same way: 5 min in the oven at 100% steam without any additions like salt or fat.

All samples go into each their own container with numbers on them. Bad photo, but you get the idea. Off we go to the venue!

Here’s the table at the end of the session. I started out with ten roots at a time and printed scorecards. The root with numbered tape that corresponds the sample is behind, so people can see the diversity. The disadvantage is that some people might judge the flavor more with their heads (“it looks like a parsnip, so that is probably the taste I have in my mouth”) than with their mouth. I don’t obsess too much about this, since we do eat with our eyes too. I might want to include more colors, but for the moment I just want to pursue intense flavor.

When one root had no more samples, I replaced it with a new number etc. In the end I just put the rest on the table.

After the event I count all the scores for each root and divide it by the times it was scored to get an average. I might look at the root and make a few adjustments or additions on my gut feeling (e.g. a root that get a slightly lower score, but had a healthy growth habit - I could include that).

These were the 15 best scoring roots out of the 50. Besides sweetness, we were looking for roots that had more flavor - anything that just seemed more interesting. People often found flavors we associate to other roots in the same family - parsnips, celery, parsley root and sometimes “spices”, fruity, milky, nutty.

Below were the five top scorers. I’m happy both the pale pink (10) and pale purple (19) had good flavor and did a second tasting just to verify.

My plan is to plant them all in the same place, but put the top scorers in the middle to maximize the chance that they will donate pollen. I will also create a small visible boundary around them and save seed from them separately. When I then later make the mix of seed I want to sow, I will include more heavily from the top scoring seed heads. I haven’t done it this way, but it seems like a relatively simple and low-tech way to improve the traits I’m looking for.

Some things I’ve learned from this tasting:

• Prepping about 50 roots for a tasting is a lot of work! I underestimated the logistics and did stress a bit at the end - hence the blurry image on the way to the event.
• Many carrots just taste average - by definition, they will be in the middle of the bell curve. Next time I will do a rough taste selection raw in between visual and cooked taste selection. All the blands I will select against. Everything that is interesting, incl. the polarizing or too-bitter, I will keep for cooked taste selection. Some of the volatile compounds that feel too “rough” raw sometimes get interesting when cooked. I got confirmation from this when tasting the winner roots raw as I sat doing the score cards - none of them felt boring, most of them were good tasting and some of them felt a bit “challenging”. So it makes sense to only get rid of the roots that are bland and boring at the raw stage.

Next step is to keep the roots over the winter. I put them in trays like this with coco coir and sand. There’s a bit of light coming in to the shed and apparantly the roots use it: