Golden Beet Slaw

Martha Stewart Living (April 2011)

 

Sometimes it feels as though our mission in life is to get people to like two sometimes-reviled vegetables: Brussels sprouts and beets. 

It's true. We could rightly be accused of almost force-feeding these two dishes to our friends. Mostly it's because we ourselves didn't really care for them very much before we started writing the blog, and we've since fallen head-over-heels in love.

Brussels, especially roasted, are an easy sell. Throw a little bacon and apple in them, or spice them up and sauté them with cashews, and people love them. Beets can be a little more difficult and require a bit more convincing.

This may help. Here's a beet salad that's not only delicious and fresh tasting, it takes all of about 5 minutes to prepare.

One of the challenges of beets is that many recipes start off with roasting them. It's not like that's hard at all, but it can immediately add 45 minutes to the prep time for a recipe. This slaw, on the other hand, uses thinly julienned raw beets, making it a snap to prepare. Once you've peeled the beets (we used a carrot peeler, which worked well), you then cut them into small matchsticks. We used two beets when making the slaw, which took very little time to cut.

There's another benefit of not roasting the beets: Served raw, they stay firm, crunchy and, well, "beet-ier." Roasting them can bring out a real sweetness (which sometimes is great), but these raw beets taste earthier and more vegetal than their roasted cousins. It's a great background for the sweet orange flavors and acidic vinegar. The fresh scallions and cilantro give it a terrific, spring-y freshness. (If you don't like cilantro, you can swap in flat-leaf parsley. Mint would be a great substitute here, too, in a small quantity.)

A slaw that celebrates natural flavors and goes from garden to table in less than 5 minutes? Sounds pretty great to us!

 

Other great beet salads:

• Beet-and-Apple Salad
• Beet and Tangerine Salad with Cranberry Dressing
• Cabbage-Beet Slaw with Ginger Vinaigrette
• Italian Parsley and Raw Beet Salad
• Golden-Beet Salad

And don't forget about our new recipe index, where you can browse all the salads and other dishes we've featured here on the blog!

 

 

Golden Beet Slaw
Martha Stewart Living (April 2011)
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(This photo: Martha Stewart Living)

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• 1 tablespoon orange juice
• 3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds golden beets, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 3 scallions, sliced
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

• Whisk together oil, vinegar, zest, orange juice, salt, and pepper. Toss
  with beets, scallions, and cilantro.