I have, at this very moment, no less than 4 different salads in my refrigerator. They may not be assembled, but the ingredients are there, ready and waiting to be sliced, diced and ricocheted into my mouth. Today's salad: the humble beet salad.
If you have a good salad in your life, anything is possible. No doubt you think I'm being dramatic, but I'm not. I'm being very, very serious.
Salad has fibre which makes you poop. Nothing is possible if you haven't pooped for a week. Nothing. You will be amazed at how much more accomplished you are if you eat salad. Eat a salad and you'll be doing complex math equations while climbing Mt. Everest in no time.
Lettuce all on its own doesn't have that much fibre. It's everything else you put in the salad that does. The salad I'm talking about today is a prime example of an "anything is possible" salad.
It's full of fibre, colour, flavour and fun. I made up the "fun" part. Fun is not an ingredient in this salad. But it could be if you made it while tap dancing as someone tickles you.
DROPSHOT
You won't get pretty flowers with it, but the ferny greenery of Dropshot (an herb in the Marigold family), tastes exactly like, IDENTICAL TO, black jellybeans.the ferny greenery of Dropshot (an herb in the Marigold family), tastes exactly like, IDENTICAL TO, black jellybeans.
Easy Beet Salad
There are many reasons to love this salad. First of all because it's easy and second of all because it's delicious. What more do you want in a salad? What more do you want in any food? What more do you want in life?!
By the way, if you're interested, you can make beautiful tie-dye beets like this by combining yellow and red beets in a tin foil packet while you roast them.
The dressing for this salad is one I keep in my refrigerator pretty much all the time because it tastes great on almost anything. Roasted red peppers for example. Or fingertips.
Roasted Beet Salad with Goat Cheese
Ingredients
Salad
- 2 roasted beets
- Fresh baby greens
- Beet greens
- Goats cheese
- Nuts of choice (I use regular or candied pecans)
Dressing
- ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
- ¾ cup olive oil
- 1 Tablespoon dijon mustard
- honey to taste (start with 1 Tablespoon and build from that)
- salt & pepper
Instructions
BEETS
- Cut tops off of the beets and wrap in 2 layers of tin foil. Roast in 400 ºF (200 ºC) oven until tender.
- In general, average sized beets take around 45 minutes).
- Remove beets from the oven and allow to cool enough to handle. Wrap in a cloth or paper towel and slip skins off.
- Refrigerate beets until cold.
DRESSING
- Add all the ingredients except the oil to a bowl.
- Whisk together.
- Slowly whisk in olive oil. Add salt and pepper. Taste. Add more honey if you'd like.
Assemble
Fill bowl with torn greens. Add sliced or quartered beets, as much crumbled goat's cheese as you'd like and pecans. Drizzle with dressing.
Notes
If you have them on hand you can also add: shredded carrots and diced apples
It's not a triple bypass. It's a salad.
You make the salad, it'll make the poop.
Viki
Roasted beets with a wee bit o' crunch left, thinly sliced red onion, Pecans and crumbled Bleu cheese on arugula. We grow beets year round and always have some prepared in the icebox to use in meals or fermented as a snack. Love the beet!
Karen
Hi Viki! I don't normally cook beets in advance, but this year I realized that they all start out the same way no matter how I'm going to use them - by roasting. So I might as well roast them all and freeze them, so that's what I'm doing this year. As I pick them I roast them and ... O.K. well then I eat them, but I'm going to start putting some in the freezer after I roast them soon, lol. ~ karen!
Amber
My mom just made the most amazing beet salad I’ve ever had: roast beets until soft, stir in blanched and cut peaches, drizzle with raspberry vinaigrette, fold in burrata. Unbelievably good.
Kit
Cheater! :D That's not a salad - that's dessert!
Karen
Holy crap. That does sound amazing! I have to add peaches and burrata to my grocery list immediately. Thanks! ~ karen
Ann
Yum. I make this salad all the time. Have for years.
Tina
I love beets, salad, and goat cheese so this salad is aces for me!
I love the dressing recipe, in large part because it abides by the rule I was taught when I learned to cook (in France). It’s a 3-2-1 dressing. There’s 3 parts of oil, whatever sort you’re using. There’s 2 parts of vinegar, balsamic or wine vinegar, or champagne. And there’s 1 part of seasoning, my favorite is mustard, garlic, and herbs. Any salad dressing should fall into that pattern! My cooking teacher even awarded me a random, large spoon. Lol, it’s the perfect measuring spoon for salad.
Karen
That's right. :) It's how I make any salad dressing. As long as you have those ratios and add the oil slowly last (and have an emulsifier like mustard or salt or whatever) you'll have a good dressing. France! Fancy you!! ~ karen
tuffy
Love beet salads!! Yours looks wonderful! Trying tomorrow 👏
I use lemons plus their zest, instead of vinegar, as the only change.
Randy P
What time is it? Time to make a appointment with my optometrist. I got all excited thinking this was a recipe for 'beef' salad. Oh well. Never acquired a taste for beets. They're right up there on the NO chart with cilantro (tastes like soap to me), beets taste like 'dirt'. But that dressing sounds terrific!
Karen
I used to argue when people said they taste like dirt, but then I paid attention and ... they do taste a bit like dirt. So apparently this is a taste that I like as long as dirt flavour is presented in beet form. ~ karen!
Michelle
by the way... the dressing goes really well tossed with mixed grilled veggies and grilled & sliced Italian sausages!
Nicole
Your last line made me laugh so hard that I'm pretty sure my coworkers know I'm not working right now...
Then I had to forward your post to my dad, who had gone to the ER 20 years ago with that very condition.
The doctors had quite a chuckle over it! As do his family evey time beets are served at family gatherings!
Stacey
I just made and devoured this salad. I had to use *gasp* canned beets because I didn't think I liked them enough to grow them in my garden. It was still fabulous! I used cashews because it's what I had laying around and literally ricocheted them into my mouth because I couldn't stab them with my fork. Ate half a can of beets and am looking forward to the next 24 hours to see what colours my bowels will produce! It's a must make!
Janet Timinsky
I make this very same salad, but I add naval orange segments to the salad and the juice to the dressing. It is absolutely the best and you are so right about the fact that you are not bleeding to death when you do poop. It's just the red juice from the beets, no biggie!
Mary
Thanks. Made recipe as per directions. Perfection.
Karen
Great! I loveeee that salad. :) ~ karen