Clean Eating Citrus Marinated Beets Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the healthiest way to prepare beets? ›

Steaming beets is a healthful cooking method because they retain most of their vitamins and minerals—they're not boiled out in water—and stay incredibly vibrant. Plus, steaming small beets or beet quarters is quick and easy for weeknights.

Beets are a weekly ritual around here. Usually we boil them and toss them in a sweet sour vinaigrette and keep them in the refrigerator to eat all week. The vinegar in the dressing "pickles" the beets, helping them last longer in the fridge.

Delicious. Roasted with goat cheese. – The classic, all-time favorite preparation. Roast beets until they are tender and juicy, then eat them with some spicy greens and piquant goat cheese.

Steaming: Steaming is a great way to cook beets while retaining their nutritional value. To steam beets, first, scrub them clean and trim off the greens and tail. Place them in a steamer basket over a pot of boiling water and steam for 30-40 minutes, or until they are tender.

Both eating beets and drinking beet juice will give you anti-inflammatory betalains and other phytonutrients. If you're looking to enhance athletic performance, drink up. Juicing beets delivers a concentrated dose of nitrates, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. However, you lose the fiber when you juice the beets.

Pickled beets are popular on salads or as a side or snack. These naturally sweet root veggies may have a number of health benefits, including improved digestion, physical performance, blood sugar levels, and heart health. However, you should avoid varieties with high levels of added salt or sugar.

Aunt Nellie's Pickled Beets contain no fat, saturated fat or cholesterol; they are kosher and gluten-free.

Cooked, fermented, or pickled beets retain much of their nutritious value, although some of the nitrites and other nutrients may be lost during preparation (13, 18, 19, 20).

Can you eat beets everyday? It's always best to follow a varied diet. Eating a small amount of beetroot every day is unlikely to do any harm, but a high intake could lead to low blood pressure, red or black urine and feces, and digestive problems for anyone with a sensitivity to the nutrients.

My favorite way to cook beets is to roast them, which gives a sweeter, richer, and deeper flavor than boiling does. Another advantage is that they don't bleed as much, especially if they're roasted whole. Incidentally, to get beet stains off your hands, wet them, rub them with coarse salt, then wash with soap.

How do you make beets taste like meat? ›

Cure your vegetables as you would a piece of meat for a couple of days. This can be achieved by rubbing the vegetable or mushroom with salt at a concentration of 1.75% of the vegetable's weight, wrapping it tightly in plastic or vacuum sealing it, and letting it sit in the fridge for 2-3 days.

Forget what you thought you knew about food prep: You don't HAVE to peel your vegetables (well, most of them, anyway).

Sometimes beets are peeled before cooking. They may also be scrubbed and cooked until tender with their skins on; the skins slip off fairly easily after cooling. (Some people are happy to leave the skins on; they are fine to eat.)

TIPS FOR cooking beets

Keep checking whichever method you're using. Don't remove the beet skin before cooking. It's really not necessary and it's much easier to do so after cooking. Some also find that removing the skin prior to cooking takes away some of the beet's earthy test.

Cooking beets won't give you the same health benefits because heat destroys betalain pigments and hampers nitrates, but it's still good for your health. To preserve the maximum health benefits, grate raw beets into salads or steam/roast beets just long enough to tenderize them.

Steaming in the oven rather than baking helps preserve more of the healthy vitamins and minerals in beets. This method also helps beets better retain their beautiful, vibrant color. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place prepped beets and 3 tablespoons to ¼ cup water in a shallow baking dish.

Roast Them

Roasting is an overall healthy cooking method with minimal vitamin loss, particularly vitamin C. Roasted beets are rich and sweet with slight mineral flavors.

My favorite way to cook beets is to roast them, which gives a sweeter, richer, and deeper flavor than boiling does. Another advantage is that they don't bleed as much, especially if they're roasted whole.