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Marinated Beet Salad With Whipped Goat Cheese
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- Total Time
- 1 hour, plus cooling and marinating
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 8 to 10medium-large beets (see note)
- 2tablespoons minced shallots
- 3tablespoons olive oil, plus more to taste
- 2tablespoons rich, sweet vinegar like Barolo, balsamic or sherry
- Salt and ground black pepper
- ¼cup shelled nuts, like pistachios, walnuts or pecans (optional)
- 1cup loosely packed whole herb leaves (like parsley, mint or cilantro) or 2 cups small salad greens (like baby spinach, baby arugula or mâche), or use a mixture or herbs and greens
- ¼cup fresh goat cheese
- 1tablespoon olive oil
- 2tablespoons whole milk or heavy cream
- ½teaspoon rice or white wine vinegar, plus more to taste
- ½teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
- ¼teaspoon salt, more to taste
For the Beets
For the Goat Cheese
Preparation
- Step 1
Prepare the beets: Place a rack in the center of the oven and heat to 400 degrees. Place a sheet pan underneath to catch any drips from the beets.
- Step 2
Trim the greens, tops and stems from the beets. Wash thoroughly and wrap in aluminum foil packages, about 4 beets per package. Place the packages directly on the oven rack and bake until beets are easily pierced by a fork or knife, 45 minutes to 1 hour depending on size. (No need to unwrap the beets to test them.)
- Step 3
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine shallots, oil, vinegar and a lavish sprinkling of salt and pepper. Set aside.
- Step 4
Remove beets from oven and carefully open packages to let the steam escape. Let cool at least 20 minutes, or up to 4 hours.
- Step 5
Unwrap beets and use a peeler or your fingers to remove any tough skin. Dice beets neatly into bite-size pieces. Add to bowl with shallot mixture, mix well and let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or up to 8 hours. Stir occasionally.
- Step 6
Meanwhile, in a toaster oven or 350-degree oven, toast nuts until golden, about 5 minutes. If unsalted, sprinkle with salt. Let cool, then coarsely chop.
- Step 7
Prepare the goat cheese: In a bowl, mix or whisk all ingredients together until smooth. Keep whipping until cheese is fluffy and soft. Taste and season with additional vinegar and salt. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Step 8
To serve, pile beets on a serving platter or individual plates. Spoon remaining dressing over the top. Spoon dollops of goat cheese mixture on and around the beets, then tuck in herbs and/or greens. Sprinkle with nuts and serve immediately.
- It's nice to use multicolored beets, but keep in mind that magenta beets will dye the others to match as soon as they are combined. The best solution is to use just a couple of colors, and marinate them separately until time to serve.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
My family adores beets and as so I cook with them often but early beets on greens is our favorite go-to. I love the combination here with the vinegar and cream in the goat cheese; I usually just use it plain. And who doesn't love pistachios? You can speed this up by peeling the beets with a potato peeler before you roast them (also lessens the stains on your fingers) and if I'm in a real time crunch I'll dice them too and that cuts the roasting time in half. Enjoy!
I am curious why others don't peel and slice the beets before roasting them. It's a bit messy, but the beets get a little caramelized, which is delicious.
I roast beets often and it seems that 45-60 minutes is seldom sufficient. Just my experience.
Also, I find that Kenji Lopez-Alt's advice is helpful. He suggests making a pouch of foil, tucking in the beets, olive oil and herbs, and then roasting. The results are impressive.
Did you mean 1/2 cup of goat cheese?
Trader Joe’s has remarkably good cooked, peeled beets. Vacuum packed. Just sayin
recipe editors! what is a medium large beet? recipe calls for 8-10 of these which with todays supermarket produce is a truckload by weight. Even the video of the cooking of this recipe showed only four modestly sized beets.
Easier to cook the beets first and, after they cool, the skins will slide off easily.
The reason this is such a classic combination is the interplay between the earthy sweetness of the beets and the musky tartness of the goat cheese. It would be impossible to replicate the goat cheese complexity but you could come close with 4 OZ of good fresh ricotta (not the junk in supermarket tubs) and 4 TBL of good Feta with a larger dose of vinegar for the extra tang (adjusted to your taste...perhaps as much as 1 TBL) plus the other recipe ingredients. Lots of fresh ground pepper is a must.
weights would help here. Different times of year the beets come in different sizes. Also goat cheese is much easier to weigh than measure by volume.
Make beets frequently; tried other methods but always go back to stovetop pressure cooker. Whole beers unpeeled 20 minutes and done. Skins slip off. Never understand how peeling before is less messy with beets.
peeling and dicing the beets in advance is a real time saver - do the hard work at the front end of the project.
I baked them in foil packets for 45-60 min and they were perfectly fork ready.
As an option, I think roasting the beets and giving them a little char will add a nice flavor element.
I skipped the nuts, knowing my husband wouldn't like them.
We're a two person household, so I just used two large beets and it was enough to feed us a for dinner. Loved it!!
use plain yogurt instead of heavy cream, 10x more delicious.
Loved this salad and especially the mix of herbs on top!! One word of warning, the Balsamic vinegar will turn the golden beets slightly dark, so if you want them to be bright orange, use only the white wine vinegar in their marinate.
Honestly, I'd be worried about stains in case a hungry partygoer dropped one....
Make your life 200x easier and buy precooked beets (love beets brand is perfect). They come in the package cooked and ready to slice and dice.
This was delicious, and even my 10 year old raved about the beets (carefully avoiding the goat cheese). Something is definitely off about the ratio of the goat cheese to the other ingredients as it came out runny. I ended up doubling the goat cheese to get closer to a whipped consistency. Next time I’d try omitting the olive oil, and just adding a bit as needed.
I roasted the beets with the skins on and then used gloves to massage the skins off. They came off very easily. Adding the beets to butter lettuce and used some of the marinade, olive oil and more balsamic to create a dressing. Added lots of herbs (dill, parsley, cilantro) to the salad as well as to the whipped goat cheese. Wow that stuff is addictive. Paired this with a breaded chicken cutlet and lemon. Loved this dish!!
Rather than roasting beets, I braise them on the stovetop until tender. While the beets cool, I reduce juices and liquid in the pan to a syrup, which I include in the dressing. Really enjoyed the goat cheese against the beets. The second time I made this salad, I combined aspects of two other NYT beet salad recipes by adding orange segments and using arugula for the green. Superb! Definitely a keeper.
Very good. Used arugala which worked well.
The beets at my grocery store were pretty sad-looking so I went with pre-cooked, both red and gold. The creamy goat cheese dressing was a perfect counterpoint to the marinated beets and I loved the crunch from the pistachios.
Add farro, cucumbers, parsley. Maybe chicken
For heaven's sake, use those delicious beet greens! Wilt them as you would spinach leaves and add them to your salad base!
Pretty and relatively easily salad to throw together for a spring supper. Salad is delicious over arugula and heaped on sourdough crusty bread.
Don't forget to save the beet greens, if you have them. Saute in olive oil, garlic, and a splash of cider vinegar at the end.
I recently made this but added blood oranges! Zested one of them and added to the beet marinade. Whipped the goat cheese with a nonfat Greek yogurt and a touch more orange zest. The citrus adds a much needed brightness to this dish.
Don't discard the beet greens. They can be sautéed like spinach and served as a side dish for a different meal.
The dressing is excellent! I even used it on canned beets and it made them taste so much better. Don't judge.
Delicious, only would suggest roughly chopping greens if not small, and put on plate first. Mint added nice touch.
I used, gasp!, canned beets for this. For shame. The flavors are all bold enough that I didn’t think it detracted, and turns this into a weeknight wonder.
Great recipe! Have to confess that, while I followed ingredients as written, it was a hectic evening and letting them marinate for 30 minutes wasn’t possible. The beets were still warm and despite no time to marinate, it was awesome!
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