Every culture that cooks beets has a totally different take. In India, beets are stir-fried with chilies, curry leaves and spices. In Iran, they are pureed with tangy yogurt for a cooling soup. Down here in Australia, a slice or two is sandwiched in hamburgers.


Slavic countries do it best by pairing beets with the spicy kick of horseradish. Think of borsch swirled with horseradish sauce, or the broad category of relishes and salads that combine the two, sometimes with apple, potatoes or peas. The problem is that they are often heavy, leaden with mayonnaise or oil, and the beets are sometimes buried beneath spices, pickles or garlic.


Most traditional recipes begin with boiled beets, though roasted beets taste sweeter and more concentrated. Roasting skin-on, whole beets is common, though we chose to peel and slice them before roasting (at 425°F) so that seasoning has a chance to penetrate the dense flesh. Sliced beets also take half the time to cook. Of note: beets are rich in anthocyanins, the pigment that makes vegetables red or orange, so be careful when peeling as the juices stain.


Oil-based vinaigrettes slip off a beet’s slick surface, so we chose clingy sour cream lightened with lemon juice for the dressing base. Fresh horseradish root is a pain to peel and grate (and the fumes can be overpowering), but the vinegary jarred stuff from the refrigerator case can anctually be brighter and better than fresh. That’s because the bitter components in fresh horseradish are neutralized by a low pH. Skip the bland, creamy horseradish sauce sold with the condiments—the dressing needs punch!.


We liked the idea of crunchy rye croutons for a contrast to the waxy beets and to soak up the dressing, but they settled to the bottom of the mixing bowl. Instead, we reduced the croutons to crumbs, which clung to the beets. Any type of rye or pumpernickel will do, though dark pumpernickel is easy to burn when toasting. A little caraway seed—often added to rye and pumpernickel—provided a seedy crunch and pop of flavor.Finish with a handful of chopped parsley, or preferably, dill, to lighten.

Matthew Card

Matthew Card is Milk Street’s Creative Director for Recipes and Products, resident coffee geek, knife collector and equipment junkie. He has 25-plus years of professional cooking, recipe development, food writing and teaching under his belt. When he’s not in the Milk Street kitchen or on the road hunting for new recipes and ideas, Matthew lives with his family in Canberra, Australia, where he does his best to dodge kangaroos on his mountain bike and is learning to love Vegemite.