Lubna 
Beets are not just a visual treat with their vibrant colors, but cooked right, they are downright delicious. This elegant Roasted Beets salad is filling and can easily serve as the main course. Fun Fact-beets are known to be aphrodisiacs. Hence, perfect for date nights! Find other fun facts about beets here.
The golden beets have a milder flavor and don’t bleed their color so much. Expect to have pink hands when dealing with the traditional red beets! The best way I prefer them is roasted. Most people will boil beets, or pickle them. But roasting them for an hour really brings out the natural sweetness and deep flavor in the beets. There are a couple of restaurants here in Colorado that serve up a memorable Roasted Beets Salad. Yaya’s and Eddie V’s are some of my favorites. It’s best to combine some citrus and cheese with the salad. There are so many combinations to choose from! For example, Eddie V’s serves theirs with a melt-in-your-mouth burrata.
Ingredients:
Beets ( red and orange)
Cheese ( I used gorgonzola and mini-mozzarella/cigliegine)
Salad leaves ( I used iceberg lettuce. Here is Jamie Oliver’s guide to salad leaves)
Toasted, slivered Almonds ( optional)
Large orange sliced
Some diced Papaya ( optional)
Honey Mustard Dressing:
2-3 tsps honey
1 tsp spicy mustard
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
dash of salt and pepper
Directions
Mix the dressing and set aside. Peel and quarter the beets. Lay them on a greased foil sheet. Cover them loosely with foil. Roast at 375F for 45 mins-1 hr till tender. Chill in the fridge completely.
Assemble the salad by placing the beets, orange slices and diced papaya on top of the salad leaves. Tuck in pieces of the mozzarella balls and sprinkle gorgonzola all around. Drizzle on the dressing and top with the toasted almonds for crunch. Serve chilled.
Sustainability Tip 1:
Don’t throw away the leaves and stalks of the beets. I chop them up in small pieces and saute them in some mustard oil with red chilli, salt and turmeric for a quick accompaniment to white rice.
Sustainability Tip 2:
Keep all scraps/ peels and boil them in a pot of water as vegetable broth. The broth does turn pink due to the beets but you can add this to a ramen/khow suey broth for added flavor!
