This Best Roasted Beet Salad recipe is one easy way to enjoy beets and reap their nutrition benefits in a delicious side dish.
I recently picked up the book Flavor Bible, which has been an amazing read and resource when I’m stumped with recipe development. Beets have always been a tricky vegetable to create recipes around—partly because I’m not a huge fan of their flavor and partly because of the texture.
All that to say, after reading the chapter on which flavors go with beets best, I felt inspired to whip up this super simple salad that obviously tastes great! To start, you’ll wash, peel and roast the beets in olive oil with sea salt and pepper. Roasting beets helps bring out the sweetness compared to when you eat them raw it’s very earthy.
The base of the salad is the best component in my opinion. Endive gives this salad a super crunchy and sturdy bite along with a slightly bitter flavor which bounces off the roasted beets so well. In addition to these two, you’ll make a simple dijon mustard vinaigrette with fresh thyme, garlic, shallots, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. The salad is finished when you top it off with crunchy and tart pomegranate seeds, voila!
In making this salad, there are a couple of tricks to it. If you plan to make it ahead of time to serve later, I recommend storing the beets tossed in the dressing separately, then upon serving adding fresh endive leaves to the mix.
Another way you can make this if you’re planning ahead several days in advance by just roasting the beets is to leave all components of this dish stored in separate containers (i.e. beets, dressing, endive) and then toss them together upon serving.
Stripped
Beets
Beets are great to incorporate into our diets for anti-inflammatory and detoxification benefits. Beets support detoxification mainly in Phase 2 detoxification (there are two phases), which involves the enzyme glutathione-s-transferase a.k.a. GST.
GST’s basically work to “catch” and “hook up” unwanted toxic substances in our bodies with nutrients- this allows the toxins to become water soluble and neutralized from the nutrients, therefore safe for the body to excrete through your urine or other processes.
A note about detoxification: detoxification is a daily practice and a lifelong habit, which I strongly practice and recommend to my clients as well. Detoxification can’t occur simply by doing a “cleanse” for one week- our bodies actually do a tremendous job at detoxifying our bodies through multiple channels if we give them space, nutrients, proper practices to enhance, and time to do so. Beets are great to provide the body with ample amounts of antioxidants needed.
Fresh Herbs
Both rosemary and thyme have health benefits and are nutritious! Take rosemary for example which is one of the most aromatic herbs. In fact, you might find that it infuses more aroma than flavor in dishes. I love how its needle-like leaves pair with hearty grain bowls, potato dishes, casseroles, soups, and even popcorn.
Rosemary is rich in the antioxidant, carnosol, which has been shown to have chemopreventive properties. Essentially, it means that its antioxidant qualities can help prevent cancer. What’s more, this study suggests that carnosol can help inhibit the growth of osteosarcoma cells (cancer of the bone) and be used as part of a therapy for cancer.
