Mrs. Plant (v.3.0) likes them blackened in a pan with bacon grease, onions, garlic and bacon.
I believe I’ll try roasting next time.
I find that a lot of people who say they hate Brussels sprouts have only had the frozen ones. Fresh ones are amazing, roasting them is great, but so is cooking them with some bacon.
Not really for Brussels sprouts. It’s the cooking technique. Boil them up like my dad did and drown them in butter, and they still will taste awful. The fats I usually end up using are either olive oil or bacon grease.
Maybe, maybe not, but I guarantee that salt is always included.
This sounds like carmelization, and it is indeed a super delicious way to make those.
I used to work with the owner of this awesome Cincinnati restaurant that has had seared sea scallops and carmelized brussel sprouts on their menu forever. It’s their signature dish.
Recipe: http://epi-ventures.com/recipes/restaurant-recipe-boca-brussels-sprouts/
I should mention that when eating roasted brussels sprouts, savor those outer leaves that fall off during prep or in the oven.
They’re the vegetable equivalent of “burnt ends” in barbecue. 
I also cut off the ends of the stems and then cut them in half. But then I STEAM them for about three to five minutes before tossing them in a hot skillet with a LITTLE bit of olive oil and red pepper. This way they’re done all the way through, but have a nice blackened exterior. I prefer these to roasted because I never end up with that one little hard nut golf ball that didn’t get done.
I wonder if they would be any good slathered in olive oil, seasoned with salt and grilled, kinda like asparagus?
Probably.
Yes, I’ve done them this way and they are fine. I parcook them like BeeGee before finishing them off on the grill. You can do it all on the grill, but if you do so, do a two-stage heat and start on the cooler side, finish off with a sear and roast on the hot side.
I would cut them in half, fry them on a high heat until slightly charred then add some meaty stock at the end to briefly tenderise them. The suggestion to core them before cooking seems a step too far; they’re enough of a faff just to trim and peel in the first place…
I’ve grilled them and it’s fine. I used one of those perforated grill basket and tossed them every so often. No parboiling or any of that but I enjoy them al dente.
I just had the great idea of skewing them like kabobs. Google says thousands of others thought of this before me but I’d like to give it a go.
Yep, that’s how the restaurant I ate them at made them. And roasted until almost charred around the edges.
But I really like charred until almost black for most veggies. Another restaurant makes a charred broccoli appetizer that’s served with a chipotle mayo that’s awesome.
I just had the best brussels sprouts ever, this very night.
The Mrs. got a bunch of medium sized ones, trimmed them properly, sliced them in half, and then they were pan roasted with a lot of butter, diced thick cut bacon from a local butcher, onions, and maple syrup. They were left on the range with the lid on for longer than she intended, and the end result was a beautiful deep caramelization of everything in the pan. No burning, just a rich deep brown. We cleaned out the contents of the pan, and fought over the scrapings in the bottom.
They were accompanied by pork chops with rice and steamed onions and pork drippings, but frankly I would have been content with the brussel sprouts (and bacon and butter and onion and maple syrup) as a meal in itself.
Roasted in butter, salted with a pinch of sugar.
Garlic.
Fixes everything.
We had purple Brussels sprouts for dinner tonight. Steamed, only a touch of butter, and deliciousness ensued.
Probably, they would.
Earlier today, I had a doctor’s appointment and one of the magazines had a recipe for brussels sprouts with bacon and maple syrup. EVERYTHING tastes good with those (well, almost, I guess). I eyeballed the recipe and might try it.
ETA: Qadgop, was that a recipe from Good Housekeeping?
Oh, Lordy. When I was a child in the 1960s, my mother boiled the crap out of every vegetable. Brussels sprouts, green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots–let’s boil it until it’s mush and has no taste, then serve. Hey, while we’re at it, let’s boil up some potatoes too. No wonder us kids in those days hated vegetables. Tasteless green mush; unless it was boiled potatoes, in which case, it was tasteless white mush.
My ex-wife loved Brussels sprouts, and she prepared them in the way a few of you have described. But my early experiences with Brussels sprouts were so bad (thanks, Mom), that I never regarded them as real food, and refused to eat them, no matter how my ex-wife had prepared them. Maybe I should have at least tried my ex-wife’s–I might have a different opinion. But thanks to Mom and her boil-the-crap-out-of-every-vegetable-like-in-the-1950s approach, I refuse to eat another Brussels sprout.
Money.
Money changes everything.