Oven Roasted Beet Salad
Don’t redecorate the kitchen or waste another piece of foil to cook your beets! Simply throw them whole in a Dutch oven, to concentrate and seal in their sweet and earthy flavor, then easily turn them into this nutrition-packed, scrumptious Oven Roasted Beet Salad!
Beets = crazy good stuff, right? Right! They’re so sweet and juicy and have this super delicious and very distinct earthy flavor that keeps you coming back for more. And best of all is they’re just as good for your body as they are for your taste buds.
Their one serious drawback though is that they’re not much fun when comes the time to cook them. The sweet, earthy and delicious little buggers are worse than tomato sauce if you boil them on the stove top. No matter what you do, they splatter all over the place and quickly turn your entire kitchen all kinds of shades of pink!
Luckily, there’s a very easy solution to that problem: take things down into the oven! You could wrap the beets in aluminium foil and bake them just like you would potatoes, but then you’d end up wasting a whole bunch of precious aluminium foil. I’ve an even easier option for you: just grab your beets and shove them into a Dutch oven, then grab a magazine and read while they are happily roasting away, entirely mess — and waste — free!
No fuss, no mess, no waste… and you’ll get the best tasting beets you will have ever eaten. And when all is said and done, you can choose to eat your beets as is, or just as easily turn them into this crazy delicious Oven Roasted Beet Salad.
First, preheat your oven to 400°F. Wash the beets and then place them straight into a Dutch oven (if you didn’t have one of those, you could use some other oven safe container with a lid, such as a ceramic or heat resistant glass cooking pot), then drizzle them lightly with avocado oil and sprinkle them with salt and pepper.
Put the lid on and place the pot on the middle rack of the oven for 60-90 minutes, or until the beets are tender.
After 60 minutes, start checking for tenderness by carefully piercing one or several of the beets with a sharp knife; the larger beets will take a bit longer to fully cook than the smaller ones.
Once cooked to your satisfaction, remove the beets from the oven and let them cool in the pot, covered, until they are cool enough to handle safely with your bare hands, but don’t let them get too cold; warm beets are easier to peel.
Once the beets have cooled enough to be handled safely, simply rub them with your fingers to slip the skins off, preferably under running water; this simple precaution will help save your fingers from turning all kinds of pink! Beets are super easy to peel like this, but inevitably, you’ll run into the odd stubborn bit; use a paring knife to get rid of those, as needed.
Technically, your beets are now ready to be eaten! You can enjoy them right away just as is, whole, sliced, diced or wedged, with a very light touch of salt and pepper…
But if you want to turn them into the delicious salad that this post is about, cut them into bite size cubes at this point and then let them cool completely if you can; your salad will taste that much better if you make it with chilled beets! But then again, maybe that’s just me…
Feel free to proceed right away if you don’t have time to let them cool or don’t mind warm beets in a salad!
Simply place the [preferably chilled] cubed beets in a large mixing bowl, along with the baby spinach leaves and sliced white onion. Then, make a very simple vinaigrette by combining some evoo, maple syrup, Dijon mustard, ACV, salt and pepper in a small glass measuring cup; whisk vigorously until well combined and slightly emulsified and immediately pour it over the salad.
Give your salad a gentle toss and serve it immediately, garnished with a handful of roasted pumpkin seeds if desired.
I used pumpkin seeds because they are my favorite snack right now and I tend to put them on absolutely everything lately, but any other kind of seeds and/or nuts would work just as good!
This salad will keep in the fridge for a couple of days, but some wilting is to be expected. For that reason, I recommend assembling it at the last minute, although the beets can totally be dealt with several days in advance! Also, it might be a good idea to take any potential leftovers it out of the fridge a few minutes prior to eating it, to allow the olive oil to get back to its normal, more palatable, fluid state.
Oven Roasted Beet Salad
Ingredients
For the oven roasted beets
- 6 medium/large beets, I used a combination of red and golden
- 2-3 tbsp avocado oil
- Generous sprinkle salt and pepper
To make the salad
- 3 cups baby spinach leaves
- 1 small white onion, thinly sliced
For the vinaigrette
- 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp salt, I use Himalayan salt
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
Optional garnish
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Wash the beets and place them into a Dutch oven (or other oven safe container with a lid, such as a ceramic or heat resistant glass cooking pot). Drizzle the beets with avocado oil and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Put the lid on and place the pot on the middle rack of the oven for 60-90 minutes, or until the beets are tender. Start testing for tenderness after 60 minutes by carefully piercing one or several of the beets with a sharp knife; the larger the beets, the longer they will take to fully cook.
- Remove the cooked beets from the oven and let them cool in the pot, covered, until they are cool enough to handle, but don't let them get too cold; warm beets are easier to peel.
- Once the beets are cool enough to handle safely, simply rub them with your fingers to slip the skins off, preferably under running water; this will help prevent your fingers from turning all kinds of pink! Use a paring knife to get rid of any stubborn bits, as needed.
- Cut the peeled beets into bite size cubes and, preferably, let them cool completely.
- Place the cubed beets in a large mixing bowl, along with the baby spinach leaves and sliced onion.
- Combine the ingredients for the vinaigrette in a small glass measuring cup and whisk vigorously until well combined and slightly emulsified. Pour over the salad and toss delicately.
- Serve immediately, garnished with a handful of roasted pumpkin seeds if desired.
Nutrition
If you’ve tried this recipe, please take a minute to rate the recipe and let me know how things went for you in the comments below. It’s always such a pleasure to hear from you!
You can also FOLLOW ME on PINTEREST, FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM and TWITTER for more delicious, healthy recipes!
5 Comments on “Oven Roasted Beet Salad”
I love this idea! I’m juicing beets right now and this sounds like a great alternative! Thank you 🙂
You are equally skilled at these beautiful plant based recipes as you are at paleo, whole 30, and decadent baked goods. These beets look delicious! I always get bored with winter vegetables and this looks like a great change of pace.
Oh my!!! Why thank you so much for this shower of kind words, Dana! Boy did you ever make my day right here, you! What a gem; you totally rock! 😀
Yum! This sounds easy and delicious. I don’t know how you keep coming up with these great recipes after all these years. I think I might add feta.
Haha! Thanks Kiara! Feta would indeed pair incredibly well with the beets…