When I was growing up, my mom loved to serve us beets. Only, she didn’t serve us FRESH beets…oh, no. Our beets came in a can, sliced up and rather unappealing to the teenage eye. You can only imagine the eye-rolling and groaning that ensued every time she told us we were having beets for dinner. When I moved out on my own, I avoided beets for quite a few years due to the trauma of my early beet exposure. But, one day I came across fresh beets in the grocery store and decided to figure out how to cook them from scratch. Once I learned how to roast fresh beets, I realized how absolutely delicious they tasted! Roasting them brings out a sweetness that I never noticed in canned beets. Adding in a few of my favorite herbs made roasting beets my favorite way to enjoy them. Now, fresh beets are on my grocery list on a regular basis and even the teens will eat them without too much grumbling! Or, as little grumbling as I can expect from teens who aren’t being fed pizza or hot dogs!
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Start looking for beet recipes in the spring because they are at their peak starting in June. Since they are a root vegetable, they store rather well and you can find locally grown beets through summer and into early fall. Generally, beets prefer cool weather while growing and take quite a while to fully mature. I have never had luck growing beets in the garden here in Georgia. Our summers just get too hot far too quickly. Thankfully, my local farmers are better at it than I am so I am hunting down beet recipes to try over the next few months. You will see quite a variety of colors when looking for fresh beets. Various shades of red and purple are common and you will even find yellow and white beets occasionally.
Once you learn how to roast beets, they are easy to peel and dice to put in salads or sliced into a sandwich with goat cheese and arugula. Roasting beets is easy with some aluminum foil, olive oil and your choice of herbs! I have used fresh rosemary when cooking beets but dill is another favorite herb when roasting beets. Use only a smidge of salt and a bit more pepper when preparing beets. You will need to use a knife to check for tenderness until you figure out how long to cook beets in your own particular oven. And one thing to keep in mind when figuring out how to roast fresh beets is that beets will stain EVERYTHING you own! Cutting boards, clothes, hands and everything else it comes into contact with will have beet juice stains that will take forever to come out! Take care during preparation and don’t wear your favorite white shirt!
How to Roast Fresh Beets for Maximum Flavor
Learn how to roast beets and you will have fresh, flavorful beets for as many beet recipes as you can find!
5 minPrep Time
60 minCook Time
1 hr, 5 Total Time
Save Recipe
Ingredients
- Fresh beets
- 2 TBSP olive oil per beet
- Fresh herbs, salt, and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Coat the beets lightly with olive oil.
- Wrap the beets in aluminum foil
- Place foil-wrapped beets on a baking sheet and roast them in the oven until cooked through, approximately 45 to 60 minutes.
- Remove beets from the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes
- Peel and slice each beet into 1/4-inch thick slices
Want more easy beet recipes?
Check out this Roasted Beet Salad with Blue Cheese and Walnuts
Diane is a professional blogger and nationally certified pharmacy technician with two teens, one husband and more pets than she will admit to. She has a BS in Microbiology but left her career in science to become a stay at home mom. Years of playing with LEGO and coloring with crayons had her craving a more grown up purpose to her life and she began blogging full time. She currently deals with emotional teens, suburban politics, and middle aged metabolism while sharing her opinions in an honest and down to earth fashion on her blog.
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