Roasted Beet Salad with Candied Pecans

“The Candy of the Earth.” This is how I refer to the wonderful beet.  

Beets come in all shapes and colors. There’s golden beets, candy cane beets, and the common red beet. They are a hearty root vegetable that are available year round. They are super nutritious and tasty. 

This salad is really easy and it's sure to turn the beet hater into a beet lover!

Beets need to be cooked otherwise they are super hard. The cooking of the beet tenderizes them, making them a delicious snack on the go or at home. I like to keep some beets roasted and all ready to go in the refrigerator. I eat them for breakfast, lunch, or a nice healthy snack. I use honey as my salad dressing for this salad. With all the wonderful flavors I didn’t think it ever needed one. Canned mandarin oranges are pretty delicious from a can, which are what I use when making this salad.

Some Tips for Roasting Beets:

This step in the salad making process takes the longest. 1-2 hours (sometimes longer) depending on the size and how fresh the beet is. If your beets are fairly large you might want to ¼ them. I have had beats take 4 plus hours! I just kept checking and adding more water. If you have some stubborn beats that don’t want to soften, I’d recommend checking every hour inserting a knife to see if the beats are tender enough and to see if the water has evaporated.

This step is best completed the day before, ensuring the beat has ample time to cool. I have found the fresher the beet the harder it is. This is just one of my observations from cooking with beats throughout the years. When peeling, they are kind of like peeling a hard boiled egg. Sometimes the shell comes off in one nice easy peel and other times every little piece sticks to the egg, beets are the same way.  

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