How to Roast Beets

We love beets, in fact our favorite sandwich right now is toasted bread spread with some creamy goat cheese and topped with sliced beets that have been tossed with a little bit of olive oil and salt. The beets are sweet and earthy, while the cheese is tart and creamy, hmmm… so good! 

When you buy beets, you will find them one of two ways, with green tops or without. Both are fine. Just before roasting, remove the green tops (if they are there) and scrub, scrub, scrub them beets clean.

Now, add the beets to an aluminum foil lined baking sheet then give them a little rub down with olive oil and salt.

Grab another piece of aluminum foil and cover the beets. You want them covered pretty tightly. Then, slide them into a 400° F oven for about one hour. Remove the beets and give them a test for doneness. You do this by inserting a fork into the beet—if it slides in pretty easily, you’re good to go, if not, re-cover and continue to roast until tender. A medium to large beet will take about one hour and 30 minutes to cook.

Once cooked, allow the beets to cool a bit before peeling the outer skins away. If you are cooking red beets, you may want to buy some food-grade plastic or latex gloves to protect your hands from turning bright red. We bought our box of disposable gloves at a pharmacy.

Peel off outer skins and cut the beets into slices or quarters, depending on how you want to serve them. If we are adding them to a sandwich, we slice, but for a salad, we like wedges instead.

See, not too hard, right? As for more ideas of what to do with beets, here are some ideas:

• Add quartered beets to bright green spinach, sweet strawberries, walnuts and crumbled goat cheese and top with balsamic vinaigrette.
• Slice beets and layer onto goat cheese or cream cheese slathered toasted bread.
• Make a beet-heavy salad.
• Use ‘em on top of pizza.