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Made with red or golden beets (or a mix of both colors like we do), this easy Roasted Beets side dish is simple to prepare and delicious!
Beets are one of those vegetables where – it seems – people either love them or hate them. As a child, I wasn’t much of a vegetable eater, but I loved beets!
Back then – the beets I ate were the kind out of a can or jar – but today, Roasted Beets are our method of choice when preparing this flavorful root vegetable.
Roasted beets are incredibly sweet and earthy with a uniquely delicious flavor. Nowadays, you can find both red and golden beets at most supermarkets – and if you are lucky enough to find beets with the greens still attached, those are edible too! (See this beet greens recipe here.)
How do you prepare roasted beets?
First of all, you can make this Roasted Beets recipe with just red beets, just golden beets, or a mix of the two like we did. One thing to keep in mind though – if you cook the red beets together with the golden beets, the red juices will color the golden beets a pinkish, orange color, but it doesn’t impact the flavor at all. In our recipe below, we’ve take a few extra (but easy) steps to ensure that your finished dish showcases the gorgeous colors of each variety of fresh beet.
Our Roasted Beets recipe actually starts by cutting the beets into one-inch pieces, then pre-boiling them in water (use separate pots for each color) just until they start to soften – about twenty minutes. This step can be done ahead of time, refrigerating the pre-cooked beets up to a day or two before you plan to serve them.
Then, about fifteen minutes before your meal, place your beets on a large sheet pan lined with foil, keeping each color separated so the red juices don’t discolor the golden beets. Next, roast your beets in a hot oven with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, plus salt, pepper and a little garlic powder on top.
Before serving, drizzle the beets with butter, then toss both colors together to combine.
These Roasted Beets are another side dish we served a few weekends ago when hosting a dinner party for friends. The menu included both Pan Seared Halibut with Lemon Caper Sauce and Farro Risotto with Mushrooms and Tuscan Kale recipes from earlier this week, plus our Shirazi Salad as a starter and our Vietnamese Iced Coffee Granita for dessert. (It was quite the feast!)
You may also like these other beet recipes:
We love seeing what you made! Tag us on Instagram at @afamilyfeast or hashtag #afamilyfeast so we can see your creations!
Roasted Beets
You may want to considering wearing food-safe gloves when handling red beets to avoid staining your fingers.
Ingredients
2 bunches red beets
2 bunches golden beets
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Instructions
Trim the leaves off and the bottom off from the golden beets and peel. Then cut into one-inch pieces. (See notes below.) Place in a medium sauce pan. Cover with water, salt the water then bring to a boil. Boil just until a fork can pierce a piece but still be somewhat hard, about 20 minutes.
Put on plastic or latex gloves and repeat the same steps for the red beets placing them into a separate sauce pan with salted water. Boil just until a fork can pierce a piece but still be somewhat hard, about 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F ten minutes after the beets have been boiling.
Drain the beets separate from each other and pour out onto each half of a sheet tray not touching in the center.
Drizzle the oil over all of the beets and sprinkle on the salt, pepper and garlic and roast for approximately 15 minutes or until tender and just starting to brown.
Remove the red beets to a serving bowl and drizzle on half the butter. Repeat for the golden beets pouring them over the red beets in the bowl and drizzle on the rest of the butter.
Serve immediately.
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Notes
Start with the golden beets by trimming the top and bottoms. Then place cut down and with a peeler, peel down towards the board. Then lay it on its side and peel around as you turn the beet.
Throughout the entire cooking process, keep the golden beets separate from the red beets.
Most delicious roasted beets recipe I’ve ever tried!
Thank you Andrea!
Hi Martha- #1 I think your site is amazing and I have no complaints and your a winner.. just a couple thoughts though or suggestions, I think People are looking for a hack on how we can make roasted beets which takes at least a hour in the oven with foil skin on oil SP and garlic for a hour to yield best results keep for later, only reason I’m saying this is due to I looked up on google and your site came home, which shows you are tending… woohoo!!
Back to comment at hand, with your process, I do not boil veg at all, it yields no flavour or despair of results period. Even if your roast it in the end ( my experience with all veg). Blanching I do know from what I read many eons ago is how you keep for later from cooked to frozen frozen.
But again that’s not my question, do you know how to preserve the taste, tester and hear after you have roasted your beets whole and would like to serve them later in the week hot and perfect?? Your expertise is advised.
Meagan, this is Jack. Your question is very interesting and if I understand it, you are suggesting that baking with skin on (peeled later) and not blanched, will preserve more of the flavor. I actually want to try this. I’m going to go out and buy a bunch of beets later today and bake half of them skin on and make the other half per our recipe and then test the results. Thinking this through, I will bake, peel, cut and saute with butter and spices vs the recipe to peel, cut, blanch then roast.
I’ll report back and let you know how they came out and compare to the original. I love a challenge.
OK, I gave this a college try. I bought both yellow and red beets and roasted them this morning. Half I roasted per our recipe and half I roasted whole with skin on and peeled after they were tender. Being honest here, I could not detect a flavor difference. The texture was slightly different in that the roasted whole and peeled had a different chew feel than the cut and roasted, mostly because the cut and roasted picks up a little firmness on the outside of the cut, where the whole roasted and peeled was soft all the way through. Other than that, the flavor intensity was identical. Last observation is that peeling first is easier than peeling after. Trying to peel the already roasted beet was a little tricky as the flesh kept coming off with the skin and I feel like I had more waste.
I appreciate the logic in your question though, but the results did not prove it out.
Thanks for the interest,
Jack
When boiling them before roasting them are we getting rid of some of that the vitamins . I’ve just always cut them up toss them in olive oil and roasted them from the raw state
Hi Catherine – You can do that if you prefer. The outside of your beets will be more charred before the inside is cooked through.
How many beers are in one bunch? My store packs 3 beers per bunch. Just checking to make sure I have the right amounts 🙂
Hi Eva – That sounds about right – our supermarket also packs about 3 large or 4 smaller beets per bunch. (Great question – in hindsight, we should have given a pounds measurement – and will update that the next time we buy some beets. Thank you for your question.
I always read your emails. They’re the best!
Thanks Diane! 🙂 We appreciate it!
bravo, we have been roasting our beets, usually red, much like your recipe but we do not par boil the pieces before placing them in a covered glass casserole along with a healthy drizzle of EVOO, a shake of sea salt and freshly ground pepper, a couple TBLS of water, and a few whole Cloves. we bake them in the oven for about an hour at 350 deg. F., until fork tender, stir them once. we do not parboil the beets because we think it reduces their food value. we enjoy your new website.
The addition of cloves with the beets sounds delicious Richard! Thanks for the suggestion!