Rutabaga

By: Amelia Attwood, RD, LD

Looking to achieve more variety in your winter meals when serving mashed potatoes? Mashed potatoes, a common comfort food, may be replicated with the incorporation of any root vegetable for a lighter side dish. Rutabaga, also known as swede, is a root vegetable that belongs to the Brassica family. The flavor profile of this vegetable is a combination of a turnip and cabbage.

The rutabaga is in peak season in Iowa from August to September. By choosing local rutabagas in peak season, you can benefit from consumption of the highest nutritional value available in that plant. This means consuming the maximum amount of vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium that the rutabaga may contain. All of which support skeletal muscles in daily movement and athletic performance.  Rutabagas also make a great alternative to potatoes as a low-carb option.  One cup of unseasoned mashed potatoes contains twice as many carbohydrates per volume as one cup of unseasoned mashed rutabagas.

The producers of the rutabagas featured at school this month are known as Driftless Organics located in Soldier Grove, Wisconsin. They are a 100-acre farm in the ridge and valley fields of Southwest Wisconsin. They sell fruits, vegetables, and sunflower oil across the Midwest through farmer’s markets and retail grocers. Their produce for sale originally started out as a summer project in 1993.  Farmer’s Noah and Josh, at just ages nine and eleven at the time, experimented with growing 20 varieties of potatoes and their business operations only grew from there.

The easiest way to enjoy this cruciferous vegetable is to roast or boil them. Roasting and boiling allows time in the cooking process to tenderize the root vegetable. Try roasting diced, julienned, or thinly sliced rutabaga seasoned to taste. As seen in school this month students enjoyed taste testing mashed rutabagas.  If you're looking to introduce this side dish to the whole family, try a 50/50 combination of mashed potatoes with mashed rutabaga or with mashed kohlrabi. When utilizing either roasting or boiling of root vegetables remember to cook all vegetables until fork tender. If you are looking to change up the texture to your root vegetables at home entirely, try spiralizing rutabagas as noodles. If you are needing more simple produce recipes, checkout our Simply Seasonal database of five ingredients or less and five steps or less recipes.