How to Eat Beets When You Don't Really Love Them

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    We all know that beets are very healthy! They are high in fiber, vitamin C, iron, potassium and other vitamins.  They are associated with lowering blood pressure, filtering your blood and increasing physical exercise performance. There are people who love the sweet, earthy flavor of beets.  I am a big fan of their wonderful health benefits.  I eat them and I can actually feel the heath benefits when I do.  But, I am not a great fan of that earthy flavor that people describe.  To me, they taste like dirt when eaten all by themselves, but when you pair them with other ingredients they tend to take on those flavors and are much more palatable. So, because of my desire to reap the health benefits and yet avoid the literally earthy taste, I've found ways to eat beets that make them delicious to me. 

    Before I forget to tell you this, let me say that not only are the beet roots edible and healthy, their tops are also edible and considered even more healthy than the roots themselves.  They have even more vitamins and antioxidants and to my mind (or mouth),  taste  much better! You can eat them raw or cook them.  
    Before you get to these beet recipes, you need to prepare your beets.  This past week, my son's MIL, Anita, who has an amazing backyard garden, shared some of her homegrown beets with me!  I spent the weekend doing things with them.  The first thing I did was boil some and roast some.  Here are the steps I took:

1. ​Scrub your beets really well to get any dirty debris off of them. (They come from under the ground after all!) 
2. Remove the tops and set them aside for later.
3. Cut the area where the greens were off. leaving as small of a hole in the skin as possible.  Then, cut off the root tip. 
4. I had about 7 medium to large beets.  I put 4 of them, whole, into a pot of boiling water and boiled them for 40 minutes, until they were fork tender.  I wrapped the other 3 individually in foil and placed them in a small cake pan and roasted them for 40 minutes, until fork tender.  I wanted to see if one method worked better than the other.  You may save more of the juice in the roasting method, but the boiled ones were slightly more tender.  In both cases, the skins slipped right off. 
5. While the beets were cooking, I washed the beet tops thoroughly, removing any sand, dirt or debris and picking out the wilted or yellowed ones and tossing those.  I shortened the stems a bit and put them all in large cups of water, like you would flowers, to keep them from wilting too quickly and put them in the fridge until I was ready to use them. This was an experiment.  I also do this with fresh cilantro and it works really well! So far it is working great with the beet tops, too!

I sliced some beets plain and stored them in the fridge to use to make smoothies.

Lovely beet tops in their vase! Ha Ha! I had two containers full!

• One of my first and favorite discoveries was to put beets in Taco Soup.  I usually put in shoestring canned beets, or you could slice up fresh ones.  You won't even notice them in the soup.  They will blend in with the tomatoes and give your soup a beautiful rich red color and you will get all of the vitamins!

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• Smoothies are a great way to incorporate beets! My husband and I often enjoy healthy smoothies for breakfast.  I put in about a quarter of a cooked beet, a couple of beet tops, some spinach, a banana, some strawberries or other fruit, a tablespoon of honey, a couple of ice cubes and a little water and whip it right up in my blender!  The recipe changes every time, depending on what I have on hand. They are a great way to start the day off right. 

Sweet Pickled Beets

•     I used 3 smaller beets to make a quart jar of Sweet Pickled Beets for the refrigerator.  There are a lot of recipes out there, but this is what I did: 

Refrigerator Sweet Pickled Beets:
3 cooked beets, sliced into half circles
1 c. apple cider vinegar         1 tsp. allspice
1 c. sugar                                1/2 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. cinnmon                       1 tsp. white mustard seed
    Combine the liquid and the spices and sugar into a pot and bring to a simmer.  Add the beet slices and simmer for about 15 min.  Put into a quart jar, making sure to cover the beets with the liquid.  Put a lid on the jar and keep in the fridge.  These will last for a couple of weeks in the fridge.  If you make a larger batch, process the jars in a hot water bath for 15 min.

• I am not sure what to call this next recipe.  Sort of a Beet and Bacon Hash I guess.  What could possibly be better at making something taste good than bacon?  You can use just the beet tops or actually add some chopped up beets with the vegetables as well.  Here is what I did:

    I began with the ingredients pictured above.  I was actually going to use bell pepper instead of the yellow squash, but I was out of them.  I think pepper would have been delicious in this dish though.  Follow the pictures below to see how I did the rest. 

In a large skillet, begin browning the bacon, which has been cut into bite sized pieces. Render out the fat to use to saute the other vegetables. I used about 5 pieces of bacon cut into bite sized pieces.

When there is enough fat rendered, add the onions and the beet top stems. Let those begin to soften. Next add the squash or bell pepper. Let this all cook together for a few minutes. Add salt and pepper as it cooks. You could also add chopped garlic. I used garlic powder this time.

Next, throw in the chopped tomatoes and continue to simmer everything together. Add about 1 Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.

While everything in the pan simmers, give your beet tips a rough chop in both directions.

Spread the beet tops over the top of everything in the pan and allow to simmer a few more minutes. . .

. . .until the beet tops are nicely wilted, but not slimy. They will continue to wilt as you get ready to serve and I don't like them to be over done.

    *Just a quick note: When you add the tomatoes, you could also add some chopped beet root.  It will turn everything red, but that is not a real problem and the bacon will make it taste good!  Continue seasoning to taste. 

The colors are so vibrant and it looks so good, you just want to dive right into it now, but wait!

I topped it off with a fried egg! Oh my goodness, what a delight! You can have it with our without the egg, but I am telling you for breakfast or lunch, this plateful of bacon, beets and other veggies is glorious!

•  I had a ton of beet tops to use, and I had left over bacon from the hash.  So, I thought why not BLTs, minus the L but add the BT (beet tops), and you get BBTT! (Bacon, Beet Tops and Tomato)! Those beet tops are a lot healthier than most lettuce is anyway, and eaten raw on the sandwich, they taste terrific! 

• I've also used beet tops to replace lettuce in a green salad.  They have a slightly peppery taste, but not super strong, so I like to add tomatoes and cucumbers to the mixture to balance out the flavor. 

• Beets can even be used for dessert!  I made a variation of Joy the Baker's Chocolate Beet Cake.  I didn't use the juice to make pink frosting because I was starting to run low after all of my other recipes.  But go to her site to see it, it is very pretty. Here is a picture of mine: 

It was tall and tasty and the beets made it super moist!

• Sweet and Savory pursuits give you a recipe for Chocolate Beet Cupcakes.
• Pinch and Swirl shares Beet Brownies.

  The moral of the story is: Don't be afraid to give beets a try!  They really are a super food. I haven't grown them my self yet, but Anita has so much success with them, I think I will give it a try.  And, even if you don't like them all by themselves, there are so many other ways to eat them.  Besides that, they are so pretty and add a nice color to the foods you will make.  Your kids will love them because as you prepare them, the juices will make you look like you are bleeding!  Beet juice use is an entirely different article waiting to happen! 
    Let me know if you try any of these ideas or if you have recipes that you use with beets that you would like to share! 

     

*If you are trying to add more vegetables to your diet, here are some other posts you might enjoy! 

Zucchini Relish