Our beets from the garden have been outstanding this year. We love pickled beets, but we also love them roasted in the oven. It’s such an easy way to cook them-and roasted beets is a perfect side dish for busy weeknight suppers.
Cut the top and bottom off of each beet-and give it a good scrubbing under running water-don’t worry about peeling them. Lay the beet on a piece of foil; drizzle a small amount of olive oil; sprinkle with salt and pepper; close the foil up around the beet-kinda like a hersey’s kiss.
Place the foil wrapped beets in a 375 – 400 degree oven and roast till done-time will vary depending on the size of your beets. Once the beets are done and have cooled slightly you can easily rub the peeling off of each beet before you serve them.
Do you like beets? What’s your favorite way to cook them?
Tipper
If you haven’t used the greens yet please try them, they are wonderful!
Oh we so love beets too, unfortunately our crop this year so far has been dismal, that should turn around soon, and we should have a great crop for fall, my favorite time to eat roasted beets. But we do ours a bit different, chunked up with other vegetables, taters and garlic in a large flat pan, slow roasted and wonderfully brown on the edges. In the spring I like cold steamed beets sliced in my salad or for snacking. In the winter, Harvard beets for sure.
I’ll have to try the roasting trick. But my favorite way to eat beets is raw — cut up in a salad. Works best with young, golf ball size beets.
P.S., Tipper…I went to Farmer’s Market this morning and bought some beets to try your roasting idea. My husband laughed at me for buying beets after I spent so much time pickling ours!
MJ
I love beets. And they are so pretty. : ) The last time I cooked them I cubed them and roasted them in the oven like potatoes. They came from my girlfriend’s garden and were soooo sweet. Very yummy.
we love beets and did not know they would be good baked. good idea
I know I tried beets a looooong time ago and I’ve never had any since… hmmm, I’m thinking it didn’t go over too well. I wanted to say how nice your home grown beets look and maybe I should give them a taste test again. As someone else said, taste buds change 🙂
While you’re at it, Tipper, don’t throw away the greens. They may be ugly, but they cook up as some of the best I’ve had, in fact, the best.
I’ll send this to my sister Gay.
She learned that beets are supposed to be good for cleanseing the liver, I think, or helping the gall bladder. I don’t remember which, but she didn’t know how to cook them. She’ll appreciate this recipe, Tipper, and so will I.
Beets are wonderful! I could eat them anyway they can be prepared. They always seem to get such a bad reputation and I can’t figure out why.
wow! mark has had to put the furnace back on. we got our garden finally planted this week and hopefullywe can harvest everytging before the frost sets in again in the fall.
he planted beets and 10 beocolli and lots of tomatoes.will see what comes up!
We love beets and wat them canned, pickled, roasted or our favorite ..grilled! Chose those bigs beets, wash well, slice into nice thisck slice of almost 1/2″, put a small amount of olive oil on each slice amd rub it in a bit, salt with a little and allow to sit for 5 minutes. Then grill on your bbq as you would a steak.
Oh yes, beets are a wonderful thing! I like them pickled, I like them plain and I have even eaten them raw…nice earthy flavor.
I’ve always boiled them but would certainly be willing to try roasting them.
Tipper, I can’t believe you would talk about beets without mentioning that the Deer Hunter absolutely loves pickled beets!
well, I’m not a fan of beets of any kind. They always tasted like dirt to me.
My mom used to pickle them and use cook them with sugar. It’s weird cause my son loved,loved them when he was younger, now he don’t.
Hope you all are doing well.
Patty H.
Pickled beets are my favorite! I planted them this year to make pickles for my granddaughter who loves them; she can sit with a pint and eat them right out of the jar. Now the dry weather has hit us and so I don’t know if they will be good for anything. Does anyone know a secret to keep beets from boiling over? Seems no matter how low I turn the heat they have to boil over and make a mess (cleans up easily though). Are they really a good source of iron?
The best way I’ve found to prepare beets is as follows:
1. Harvest them, and set them out in a sunny place to dry completely.
2. After they’re fully dry, let them soak for a bit in C8H18.
3. Get a large washtub and fill it about half full with the dried, soaked beets.
4. Strike a match and toss it into the washtub.
I adore them roasted, too. My favorite is still how I grew up with them. Boiled until tender, cooled and then jullienned and tossed with French Dressing for a salad.
Tipper,
This is a cool way to fix beets. I like pickled beets. We used to raise a lot of them, but didn’t plant any this year in our garden. They say beets have a lot of vitamins and good for us.
Hey,
Forgot to say that it took me years to eat beets, other than pickled, after trying to eat my Mothers’ creamed beets!…she said her Mother made them that way..Yuk! I guess it was just the look of them in that pink creamy goo and as a child my imagination went awry!…That was OK with her, as she could eat the whole dish of creamed beets herownself…and give the kids
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich..My Dad hated “Those old creamed beets!” too..ha…
PS..did you ever put boiled eggs in picked beet juice for a day or two…yummmm!
Pink pickled eggs…go figure how our ideas of food change as we grow up!
I haven’t eaten a beet in years, and then it was pickled.
I would love to try them your way. By the way, I did try asparagus your way and loved it. Now you must write a post about growing asparagus. Cause I don’t know where to start.
Oh, my! How timely! I just spent parts of the last two days harvesting our smaller-than-usual beet crop and pickling them. I’ve always loved pickled beets, but never thought I liked them plain. I had tasted sweetened, thickened beets, Harvard Beets, I think they were called, and really disliked them. But one year a few years ago, I was peeling beets to pickle, and popped a small warm one in my mouth, and it was about the best thing I’d ever tasted! By the way, when you are removing the peelings from cooked ones (leave an inch of the tops and all the root on to prevent bleeding while boiling), cut off the top and root and rub the peeling off with a paper towel. Comes right off. Pickled beets are a LOT of work, but so good until they are worth it. They grow easily here, but this hasn’t been a good garden year here at all for anyone I’ve talked to. I got 11 quarts, and they are so pretty. I also ate a lot of little ones while peeling them, but I saved enough for supper tonight. We just eat them plain with a little salt, but we will try the roasted ones if my friend has any beets left. I pulled every one of ours.
Tipper,
I love pickled beets! Years ago I helped a friend can beets. A little tricky since they have to be cut to keep them from bleeding and time comsuming too, but she loved beets!..Their garden was just about a 1/2 mile from our house and their soil raised the prettiest beets you ever saw..Our beets never would do well. We finally gave up and quit trying to grow them after a semi-good year of small ones. It had to be some soil ph difference that we didn’t get correct. So since they grew the best ones, we just swapped out vegetables sometimes. ha
Now days my husband isn’t allowed sugar beets with his type two diabetes but he does grab a slice of pickled ones occasionally!
I am going to try roasting some like you do…I just always boiled mine, and ate them with a little salt, pepper and butter…
I used to make beet dye for natural color for crafts, cloth, yarn, etc…One of Gods special veggies!
Thanks Tipper
I LOVE beets, mine didn’t do much of anything this year – I still have them in the ground, hoping they’ll take off, but my turnips that were planted next to them ended up shading them out I think. This is my 3rd year trying beets, and just haven’t had a lot of luck. My favorite way to eat them is roasted. I cut them into about 1 inch squares, drizzle with EVOO, salt, pepper, and roast until they’re tender. (375 oven) YUM! They’re SOO good!