Our Best Beet Recipes Including Pickled, Roasted, and Salads

These delicious recipes are just the beginning of the wonderful things you can do with the planet’s most exuberantly hued root.

Roasted Beet-Citrus Sorghum Bowls
Photo: Blaine Moats

Few foods are as instantly festive as the earthy-sweet, richly hued beet. And with the right beet recipes (like these!), it’s as much a party in your mouth as it is on a plate. Pickled beet recipes are where many start, and we include ways to use them creatively. But there’s a lot more to beets than pickling. Recipes with beets are diverse and delicious, and roasting them softens them and unlocks deeper levels of sweetness. In fact, most beet recipes start with roasted beets, so mastering the simple skill of how to roast beets can unlock more ways to enjoy them than you can even imagine, including in beet salad recipes. But to start, here are 17 ways to have your heart skip an excited beat for beets.

01 of 17

Spicy Pickled Eggs & Beets

Spicy Pickled Eggs and Beets
Blaine Moats

Who needs food dye when you can turn plain eggs into party eggs by pickling them with beets? Crab boil spice mix and dried arbol chiles offer a surprising spicy spin to what people typically expect from pickled beet recipes and give it greater complexity. The longer they sit, the deeper the flavors soak in, so store them for up to a week!

02 of 17

Pickled Beet Sandwiches

Pickled Beet Sandwiches
Andy Lyons

Not sure how to eat pickled beets? The answer—as with most things—is to turn it into a delicious sandwich. This recipe stacks salty, fatty prosciutto, slightly bitter watercress, and crunchy crushed potato chips on hearty bread for a wonderfully multi-textural sensation. Plus, it has a bonus recipe for making your own pickled fresh beets.

03 of 17

Honey Balsamic Beet Salad

Honey Balsamic Beet Salad
Kritsada Panichgul

Beets are already sweet on their own, but if you want them a tad sweeter, add some honey and balsamic. Peppery greens like arugula or, even better, watercress if you can get it, give it its bite back though. The recipe suggests chicken, steak, or salmon, but lamb, duck, or pork would go equally well.

04 of 17

Roasted Beet and Radish Salad with Sunflower Seed Turmeric Vinaigrette

Oval gray plate with mix of bets and greens with bowl of vinaigrette
Brie Passano

This recipe name is a mouthful, but so is this beet salad. It's a delicious Mediterranean-influenced blend of crisp radishes, za’atar-seasoned toasted sunflower seeds, a vinaigrette with more sunflower seeds as well as bright turmeric to give this already colorful salad even more pop. This beet salad is a stunner on any table.

05 of 17

Roasted Butternut Squash and Beet Salad with Queso Cotija

Roasted Acorn Squash Beet Salad
Con Poulos

Another colorful salad (but then again, what salad with beets isn’t?), this recipe channels fall flavors and hues and reflects it on the plate. It’s a roasted beets recipe, but that step does double duty since butternut squash gets the same treatment, side by side. Use pumpkin seed oil for an extra dose of seasonal flair.

06 of 17

Baby Beet and Flank Steak Salad Dijon

Baby Beet and Flank Steak Salad Dijon
Jason Donnelly

Steak is a natural complement to beets; both have earthy tones. Where they deviate is that beets—especially roasted beets—are naturally sweet and beef is metallic and iron-tasting. These characteristics make them the perfect yin and yang in a dish such as this, with plenty of contrast and a touch of shared traits.

07 of 17

Roasted Green Beans with Beets, Feta, and Walnuts

Roasted Green Beans with Beets, Feta, and Walnuts on baking sheet

With all of these beet salad recipes, it may be hard to believe that these festive roots aren’t a dish best served cold. However, it’s hard to beat warm beets, especially when they’re accented with rich, creamy cheese, toasted nuts, sweet shallots, and fresh green beans. Best of all, this versatile sheet pan side is as easy to make as it is to enjoy.

08 of 17

Roast Vegetable Tsimmes with Apricots

Roast Vegetable Tsimmes with Apricots
Andy Lyons

In this recipe, sweet beets get an assist from sweet potatoes, onions, and a generous mix-in of dried apricots. Garlic, fresh-ground black pepper, and hot or sweet smoky paprika give the entire dish a big savory flavor boost, and the use of neutral parsnips grounds this exciting medley.

09 of 17

Skillet-Roasted Vegetables

Skillet-Roasted Vegetables
Andy Lyons

Don’t feel like oven-roasting your beets? Use a skillet instead! This multiple-veggie cheat is a right, sweet, and refreshing medley of caramelized roots and tubers, with fingerling or new potatoes and sweet potatoes to accompany baby beets. Sugar snap peas and lemon juice keep it from feeling too heavy, and the use of beet greens lets you waste no part of your produce haul.

10 of 17

Quinoa with Roasted Beets and Thyme Vinaigrette

Quinoa Roasted Beets thyme Vinaigrette
Jason Donnelly

Roasted beets are magic for a grain bowl, and a failsafe meal option for vegetarians. Quinoa is specially good for that diet, since these tiny seeds are complete proteins containing all nine essential amino acids, and 5 grams of fiber per cooked cup, to boot. This beet recipe takes an herbaceous cue with fresh thyme and Dijon mustard, and ricotta salata or feta add to satiety with salt and body.

11 of 17

Roasted Vegetables with Sorghum

roasted vegetables with sorghum

Kelsey Hansen

Already love beets? Try them with a new type of grain, like gluten-free sorghum! Whole grain takes longer to cook but may be worth it for nutritive value of the bran and germ. But this roasted beet recipe is flexible enough to swap farro, wheat berries, bulgur, or wild rice instead, as well as versatile enough to be a grain bowl, a side, a salad, or an entrée.

12 of 17

Roasted Beet-Citrus Sorghum Bowls

Roasted Beet-Citrus Sorghum Bowls
Blaine Moats

If you’d like a creamier dressing, try this roasted beet bowl! A sour cream and mayo-based sauce and avocado makes this hearty bowl feel rich, and smooth, nutty chickpeas turn it into a filling meal. Plus, beets become even more amazing with citrus; the acidic, sweet, refreshing citrus brightens up the earthy flavor of the root. If you love this combo, try it with black lentils, too.

13 of 17

Marinated Beet Noodle Salad

Marinated Beet Noodle Salad
Blaine Moats

If you think veggie noodles are just for zucchini, think again. You may not spiralize another zoodle after trying your hand at this salad. It leans hard into Mediterranean flavors, using pomegranate arils and chopped pistachios for pop and crunch; smooth tahini, goat cheese, and plain yogurt for creaminess; and mint and parsley for their fresh herbal notes. The Fresno chili? That’s just plain fun.

14 of 17

Roasted Beet Chips

Roasted Beet Chips
Blaine Moats

It’s clear that beets are fantastic side dishes, but here’s a secret: they make great snacks, too! A mandoline slicer makes quick work of getting your bulbs paper-thin and primed for oven-frying. Just make sure to press as much excess liquid as you can out of them before baking to get them as crisp as possible. Use your good salt for this one!

15 of 17

Beet Hummus

Beet Hummus with chips
Andy Lyons

Few vegetables love the flavors of the Mediterranean the way beets do. If you prefer to dip a chip, try making a vibrant beet hummus. This recipe gives you three other hummus options, but the beet version is a dramatic showstopper, especially garnished as suggested. Or, skip the chickpeas and make Salt-Roasted Beets with Tehina Sauce, which lets sesame tahini take the starring role.

16 of 17

Sweet Beets and Greens Smoothie

Sweet Beets-and-Greens Smoothies
Jason Donnelly

While you’re already pureeing beets, just know that you can keep going. They’re great in smoothies, and you can use their flavor to help work leafy green veggies into a healthy on-the-go breakfast. The use of blueberries, strawberries, pomegranate juice, and honey helps to mask their earthiness as these sweet superfoods shine right through.

17 of 17

Sweet Honey-Ginger Beet and Mango Smoothies

Sweet Honey-Ginger Beet and Mango Smoothies in glasses with spoon

If the intense hues of the purple smoothie are a bit too much, feel free to go fruitier and disguise all the wonderful nutrients of beets with their golden versions. They’re essentially the same, other than color, and contain just as much potassium, copper, fiber, and magnesium. To enhance the mango flavor, you’ll need mango nectar, which you can pick up in the international or tropical juice aisle of your supermarket.

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