Bonus Recipe: Baked Feta with Roasted Vegetables, Olives & Herbs
An easy and gorgeous vegetarian sheet-pan meal
This is an eye-catching sheet-pan meal that you can serve right from the sheet-pan, straight from the oven. Set this beauty in the middle of the table and then step back for a minute and feel good about what an amazing cook you are!
This vegetarian sheet-pan meal combines warm and melty baked feta with caramelized veggies, garlic and crunchy chickpeas. It’s all drenched in olive oil and finished with a generous scatter of fresh herbs and olives.
For dinner, the feta & veggies can be mashed onto toasted slices of French bread or spooned over pasta and grain bowls. (Try it over orzo pasta, farro, barley or quinoa)
For an appetizer or happy hour nibble, set this sheet-pan on the table with a sliced baguette and bottle of wine and your friends will swoon!
This is a simple recipe, but you’re going to need a few very helpful tips that make sure the veggies are perfectly cooked (not soggy).
Baked Feta with Roasted Vegetables, Olives & Herbs Recipe
You can serve this as a heavy appetizer or main course. Plan to serve it directly from the sheet-pan after it cools down for a few minutes from the oven. This meal is also great served cold for lunch the next day, although the feta will no longer be warm and soft.
Servings: 4 (main course) or up to 6 for a side dish or appetizer
Cooking Method: Baked on a rimmed sheet-pan
Approximate Cooking Time: About 25 minutes of prep + 40 minutes to bake
A printable pdf of the recipe can be found at the bottom of the page.
Ingredients
16 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved
1 red onion - cut the red onion in half and take off the peel, then cut each half into three or four wedges. Use your hands to separate the wedges into pieces.
1 small or medium zucchini, sliced into very thin rounds
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed then patted dry with a kitchen towel
4 to 8 garlic cloves, cut into ¼-inch thick slices
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Feta, sold in blocks that you can lay whole on the sheet-pan. Buy a container that weighs somewhere between 10 to 20 ounces. The photo above has two 5-ounce pieces of feta that are about 1/2-inch thick.
1 cup pitted Kalamata olives
Fresh chopped herbs: At a minimum use parsley, but for even more flavor add at least one other type of fresh herb like mint, oregano, thyme or basil.
Instructions
Heat the oven to 450F (use the convection roast setting if your oven has it).
Combine the cherry tomatoes, red onion, zucchini, chickpeas and garlic on a large rimmed sheet-pan. Pour the olive oil over the top and toss well with your hands. Season with a light sprinkle of salt and pepper and toss again, then spread the mixture out evenly on the sheet-pan. (I use ¼ teaspoon salt and a light sprinkle of black pepper).
Bake for 25 minutes, mixing once or twice.
After 25 minutes, you want the veggies to be browning and the moisture they’ve released to be evaporating so the pan doesn’t look watery.
Add the pieces of feta to the sheet pan, nestled into the veggies. Drizzle a little olive oil over the feta.
Roast for about 15 minutes more. Take a peek in the oven once and if the veggies are getting too browned, give them a gentle stir. When it’s done the feta should be warm and the vegetables should be nicely browned and no moisture should remain on the pan.
Take the sheet-pan out and scatter kalamata olives and a generous amount of chopped fresh herbs over the feta and veggies. Full sprigs of oregano and thyme also look very pretty. Don’t be stingy with the olive oil, especially if you’re serving this dish with bread to mop everything up. Consider an additional drizzle of olive oil over the warm feta and veggies. You want the sheet pan to look abundant and pretty so you can set the sheet pan on the table as a serving dish once it cools slightly.
Serve immediately out of the oven so the feta is warm and melty.
BUT if you can’t serve it immediately, don’t worry, it will still taste great.
Tips
How to Properly Roast the Veggies: The veggies will release moisture as they roast. We want that moisture to evaporate quickly, so the veggies are crisp and browned, not steamed in their own moisture and soggy. Four things will help you accomplish this.
Don’t line the pan - Silpat and parchment can cause moisture to puddle and it won’t evaporate as fast.
Don’t overcrowd the pan - If you want to roast more veggie than are listed in the ingredient list, use two sheet-pans to spread out the vegetables.
Use convection if your oven has it - The convection roast setting circulates hot air in the oven, which helps evaporate moisture and brown the veggies
Cook at a high temp - This recipe bakes at 450F. I don’t always bake veggies at this high of temp, but for this recipe it helps brown the veggies nicely. Just keep an eye on the sheet-pan and mix the veggies a few times as they bake.
Buying Feta: Look for feta that is sold in a block/rectangle shape that you can set on the sheet-pan. You can add as much, or as little, feta as you want. Aim for 2 to 4 blocks of feta, each weighing about 5 to 8 ounces and with a thickness anywhere from ¾-inch to 1 ½-inch. If you buy one large block you can cut it down to size.
Feta, second option: I make this recipe by placing rectangles of feta on the sheet-pan, but you can also just crumble big pieces of feta all over the sheet-pan.
Add Chicken: If you want a heavier meal or non-dairy option you can add skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs to the sheet-pan instead of feta. Season the thighs with salt, pepper and garlic powder and drizzle olive oil over the top. Roast for the full 40 minutes with the veggies.
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