Ingredient Highlight: Beets
Everything you need to know about cooking and eating the candy of the earth
Beets are a top 5 vegetable for me. If I was composing a dream basketball team of veggies I’d have my beets at the 2. Maybe they don’t run the floor on defense but if you dime them up for an open shot, they’ll sink it every time.
I don’t think you can go wrong with a beet. They have a unique, complex flavor, can be prepared in a variety of ways, and last a decently long time in the fridge. They’re hearty, nutritious, candy of the earth.
In my experience, lots of people say they don’t like beets. The texture is weird, the sweetness is off putting, the earthiness is too much. If you don’t like beets that’s fine. It is.
For the beet lovers, the beet curious, and the beet newcomers, step into my office, let’s talk about beets, baby.
What are beets?
A beet (or beetroot, in British English) is the taproot of the beet plant. A taproot is a type of root system wherein a plant develops a large, central root from which other roots take hold in the soil. Other taproots include veggies like carrots, radishes, and turnips (plants like dandelion and milkweed also have taproots, though we don’t eat those as often) Taproots are good eating because they’re nutrient storage for the plant above them, it’s also why they tend to be sweeter than other vegetables.
“Beet” refers to the whole plant, both the nutrient-rich taproot and the savory leaves that grow above the ground. Like most taproots, the leaves are perfectly edible but most people probably associate the vegetable with the hearty root, so that’s what we’re covering today.
Beets were first domesticated somewhere in the present-day middle east and were primarily grown for their flowering leaves. At some point, someone looked at the bulky root underground and said “I bet that’s delicious”. They were right! And over time the taproot became the most desirable part of the plant, though probably not (at first) for its flavor. Beets were often considered a medicinal ingredient and were often used to treat digestive or blood-related illnesses.
Like a lot of other hearty, nutrient-dense crops, beets became an important part of peasant diets, specifically in Eastern Europe. Beets are easy to grow, very forgiving, and, importantly, can survive in colder climates. Nowadays, beets are an important part of various Slavic cuisines.
Buying Great Beets
As with most vegetables in the U.S., beets are available pretty much all year round. Depending on the time of year, the beets at the store probably come from either Oregon, Wisconsin, New York, or in some cases as far away as the mountains of Honduras and Costa Rica. Beets are often used as a “rotation crop”, meaning that they’re planted to keep the soil fresh and lively during months when it’s not practical to grow a farm’s usual crops. As such, despite their peak season being in the summer, they’re also grown throughout winter.
When buying fresh beets look for beets that feel heavy for their size. Good beets should be dense and feel hard to the touch. If the leaves are still attached, they should be perky and free of any yellow spots (a few holes are fine). Be aware that beet leaves will go off a lot sooner than the root at the bottom, so be sure to check both.
Don’t be afraid of beets that come in a can or a jar. Commercial caning often occurs at the peak of freshness, right after harvesting. So, it’s possible the canned beets were preserved fresher than the ones on the shelf at your store. Canned beets will probably be less appealing in texture but are probably already cut and peeled making them a lot easier to work with.
Fresh beets will keep in a sealed plastic bag in the fridge for about 10 days give or take. Cooked beets can be frozen for up to a year if stored properly.
How to Eat Beets
Beets can be eaten raw or cooked, hot or cold. Let’s go over a few basic ways to prepare beets and traditional things to do within those preparations.
Universal Preparation
No matter how you’re preparing beets, you’ll definitely want to start by removing the skin. This can be done with a regular potato or vegetable peeler. Be careful since beets leak a lot of juice especially when you take away the skin. The juice will stain everything that it touches so, if possible, peel your beets on a non-porous surface (such as a plastic cutting board) and wear food-safe gloves if you don’t want pink hands the rest of the day.
Raw
Obviously, the easiest way to eat a beet is to just cut a chunk and pop it in your mouth. Can you do it? Yes. Will it be pleasant? Probably not.
Beets are really dense and can be quite a literal mouthful to chew in whole chunks. You can technically eat a beet like it’s an apple but it’s not going to be a pleasant experience. If you’re eating beets raw, I’d highly recommend breaking out your knife or mandolin to do some prep work.
There are many ways to cut beets. But, for raw preparation, I’d recommend cutting the beets thin to minimize the time spent chewing on raw beets. You can shave them into coins on a mandolin, cut them into julienne strips, or (if you’re really short on time) just shave them with a cheese grater.
Raw beets are a great sweet addition to salads or sandwiches. When raw, beets pair well with flavors that offset their sweetness — bitter greens, acidic dressings, and fatty components like cheese or bacon. They also play well with fleshy fruits like apples or plums.
Roasted
You can roast beets just like you’d roast anything else. Wash, peel, pat dry, and cut them into uniform shapes of your choosing. Coat them in oil and season them to your taste. Beets have a really strong flavor so they don’t really like to be aggressively seasoned. If you are going to season them with something other than salt I’d recommend keeping it simple and maybe only adding one or two spices. Warm spices pair best with beets: cumin, paprika, cinnamon, carraway seeds, poppy seed, etc. But, of course, experiment, do something crazy. I really like a splash of balsamic vinegar and some whole garlic cloves as my seasoning. Do what makes you feel good and that tastes good to you.
Once roasted, you can serve them hot or cold. Hot they make a great side alongside fattier meat like duck or pork. Cold they make a great addition to a winter salad or a cheese board or as a component of a box lunch.
Boiled
This is a great way of preparing beets because it’s really a jumping-off point for several different preparation methods and is the first step for a lot of very traditional beet-focused dishes like borscht.
You can boil beets whole. Just cut the stems off, wash the beets, and don’t even bother peeling them. Just toss them in a pot of lightly salted boiling water for (depending on the size) 20-40 minutes or until they pierce cleanly with a fork like potatoes. Drain them and the skin should easily peel off leaving you with tender, juicy beets.
If you’re short on time you can definitely peel and dice for a faster boil — just make sure to keep an eye on them so you don’t end up with mush.
If you’re using beets as an ingredient in a soup, I’d recommend peeling and cutting them into the desired eating shape and adding them to the hot broth to cook with all your other veggies.
Now, you can take your boiled beets, cut them into bite-sized pieces, season, and enjoy. But, for me, the main advantage of boiling beets is that they now blend really easily into a puree.
Just take your boiled beets, cut them into manageable chunks and toss them in a blender. At this point, you can add extra liquid in the form of broth or cream, or other flavorings like lemon or spices or herbs. Keep blending and adjusting until you reach your desired texture and flavor. Once you’ve got a puree it makes a lovely sauce on the side of some other vegetables, alongside meat, or as a sauce for pasta.
Pickled
Finally, just like all vegetables, beets are delicious when they’ve been soaked in salt, sugar, and vinegar for an extended period of time. Pickled beets are a great side dish or snack
For a basic pickle brine that you can do in your sleep
1 cup (240 mL) of water
1 cup (240 mL) of vinegar
1 tablespoon (17 g) of salt
(for a sweeter pickle) 1 tablespoon (17g) of sugar
Boil that mixture, pour over your cut and washed veggies, plus any seasonings you want to add and seal them in a jar in your fridge for 24 hours, and now you have pickles. You also now have a brine you can use several times to just keep making pickles.
How I Eat Beets
Let me close with my favorite way to eat beets which is also, consequently, my favorite way to eat eggs: a beet pickled egg. This is a concoction I love dearly and could make in my sleep and I will tolerate no slander of any kind. It sounds weird and gross — a bright purple egg that’s been sitting in vinegar and sugar for a few days sounds weird. I get it.
Apart from a nostalgic connection to this fine delicacy, I also happen to think there’s something about the balance of salty and sweet and acid that really just works. For me, it’s a center point of flavor balance, not unlike ketchup or sweet chili sauce. There is something about a beet pickled egg that’s just so wrong it’s right.
Here is the quick recipe: