Colorful Crave-Worthy Salad
Have an aversion to beets? This is the cold beet salad recipe that will make you crave them. Cooked beetroots lightly dressed with a tart citrus-balsamic vinaigrette and topped with crumbled feta cheese and chopped cilantro. It’s an everyday salad disguised as a date-night or dinner party salad.
A beautiful salad in the colors of the Mexican flag, green, white, and red. If you have never prepared beets before it is far simpler than you may think.
How to Make Beet Salad
First, gather your ingredients.
You will need:
For the Salad
- 4 medium red beets or golden beets
- ¾ cup feta cheese
- 2 tbsp. finely chopped cilantro
For the Vinaigrette
- Juice of 1 orange
- Juice of 1 lime
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tsp. balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbsp. honey
- ½ tbsp. dijon mustard
- ½ tsp. salt + plus as needed to taste
- 1 clove garlic
How to Choose Beets
When you are at the market buying beets look for ones that are deep in color and firm with few or no blemishes. Small to medium sized beets are more flavorful and tender. If the beets have a lot of soft spots and blemishes they are past their prime and you should avoid them.
Cooking the Beets
Cut the green tops off the beets. Cooking note: Save the beet greens for later if you would like because they are edible and delicious. Lightly boiled or sautéed are good ways to prepare them.
Place the beets in a large pot and cover with 2″ of water. Bring to a boil then reduce to low and cook for 45 minutes until they are fork tender.
Set the beets aside and allow to cool.
Peel the beets once they are cool to the touch.
Cut the beets into 1″ pieces.
Making the Beet Salad Dressing (Vinaigrette)
Make the vinaigrette while the beets are cooking. This gives the flavors of the dressing time to blend.
- In a small mixing bowl add the orange juice, lime juice, balsamic, vinegar, honey, and dijon mustard.
- Whisk the ingredients briskly while slowly pouring in the olive oil.
- Whisk vigorously until the ingredients have combined.
- Add the chopped garlic and salt. Whisk in incorporate.
- Taste the dressing and add salt to taste if needed.
- Set Aside.
Salad dressing tip: When we are adjusting the salt level in a salad dressing we tend to make it a little on the salty side because when you add the dressing to your salad the saltiness will even out.
Serving the Salad
- Divide the beets into 4 small salad bowls.
- Top with crumbled feta cheese and chopped cilantro.
- Lightly drizzle each salad with vinaigrette. (Shake well before dressing.)
- Serve lightly chilled.
Looking for the best beet salad? This may be it. Provecho!
Beet Salad Recipe with Feta Cheese and Citrus Balsamic Vinaigrette
Ingredients
Salad
- 4 medium beets red or golden
- ¾ cup feta cheese
- 2 tbsp. finely chopped cilantro
Vinaigrette
- Juice of 1 orange
- Juice of 1 lime
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tsp. balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbsp. honey
- ½ tbsp. dijon mustard
- ½ tsp. salt
- 1 clove garlic
Instructions
Beets
- Cut the tops off the beets. Place the beets in a large pot and cover with 2″ of water. Bring to a boil then reduce to low and cook for 45 minutes.
- Set the beets aside and allow to cool.
- Peel the beets once they are cool to the touch.
- Cut the beets into 1″ pieces.
Vinaigrette
- In a small mixing bowl add the orange juice, lime juice, balsamic, vinager, honey, and dijon mustard.
- Whisk the ingredients briskly while slowly pouring in the olive oil.
- Whisk vigorously until the ingredients have combined.
- Add the chopped garlic and salt. Whisk in incorporate.
- Taste the dressing and add salt to taste if needed.
- Set Aside.
Serving
- Divide the beets in 4 small salad bowls.
- Top with crumbled feta cheese and chopped cilantro.
- Lightly dress with vinaigrette dressing.
- Serve lightly chilled.
Notes
- You can substitute goat cheese or ranchero cheese for the feta cheese. The goat cheese will give the salad a sharper taste and the ranchero cheese will give it a milder taste.
- You can substitute 1 tbsp. lemon juice for the lime juice.
- A tsp. of diced red onion in each bowl adds a little kick.
Nutrition
More Mexican Salads
Mexico has many great salads. Here are a few of our favorites. They go far beyond the bagged salad mixes.
julie says
I already love beets, so this looks perfect!
Sam says
Very simple but delicious! Your photos are beautiful and helped follow the recipe. I absolutely loved the dressing I’ll be using that for other salads too, thanks for sharing!
Burt says
You need to be careful not to overcook beets as they are pain to peel otherwise. There must a trick on peeling beets that I’m missing. My dressing wasn’t quite perfect. You need to measure everything out better I guess. Very good overall. My first time cooking beets although I love them. Thank you.
Kelly says
Emailing this beet salad recipe to myself
Jessica Watson says
Made it over the 4th of july and it was definitely delicious! Thank you so much!
Douglas Cullen says
Awesome. I glad you liked it!
Cassandra Pope says
Delish!
T C says
This is so delicious. One does not even need to follow ‘amounts’. That’s an excellent recipe. Thanks for sharing.
Elisabeth says
Best beet salad ever. What a delightful combination with cilantro and feta. But salad dressing is my new favorite for all kinds of salads.
M says
are the beets supposed to be fully submerged under water or just 2” of water in the pot?
Wil says
Great! But discard the beet green tops?!!! 😲😩😠 no! Beet greens are delicious cooked! Don’t discard them!
Paul says
The recipe is great. The printing of the recipe is too large. It takes three pages to print it.
mary says
Steam beets whole until you can poke a skewer through them, then let cool. Skin etc can then be easily removed. I have used parsley instead of cilantro; also delicious.
Sarah says
This recipe is delicious! By far the best beet salad I have had the pleasure of eating. I followed the recipe exactly and would not change a thing.
Douglas Cullen says
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks!
Marlene VanderLaan says
I had this beet salad while visiting the Magical Kingdom of Disney in Florida 2 weeks ago. We had lunch at one of the many restaurant’s on site..
The base of the salad was your recipe and they modified it by adding yogurt, granola, and mandarin oranges. They did not use your Citrus/Balsamic dressing, which i believe would have enhanced their salad greatly.
I was quite impressed and purchased beets today to make it for my guests coming Friday. I’m looking forward to using your recipe and adding candied pecans.
Thank you from Canada!
lorraine says
Absolutely fabulous. Will serve this one often.