[Recipe] Beet Salad with Maple Vinaigrette

How long have I been waiting to use that blog title?

Personal story for you… When this Selena Gomez song came out, I used to sing it at the top of my lungs in the car. It was just to much fun to sing. I sang it while my husband was with me too. All. The. Time. Typical of us, we changed the lyrics. It’s what we do. To almost every song we’ve ever heard. This one got turned into, “I love you like a love song, beep beep”.

My husband’s called me Beep Beep ever since. Aww…

On to dinner.

Remember the beets we roasted on the weekend? These ones? I mentioned then that I had big plans for them. Today’s the day I let you in on my plans for the gorgeous roasted beets.

Have I mentioned how much I love beets? Yes, I have. If you haven’t had the opportunity to try beets that aren’t pickled, I want you to know that they are a lot different than the ones you’re probably used to seeing in the centre of the Thanksgiving table. Just like a cucumber doens’t taste the same when it’s pickled, neither does a beet. Don’t get me wrong – I love pickled beets too, but fresh roasted beets are a completely different thing. I think they taste just a bit like corn on the cob. Maybe not. But they’re goooood, really good.

This evening for dinner, I threw together a yummy and healthy beet salad with a maple vinaigrette. It took me about 15 minutes, since the beets were roasted on the weekend. So simple, so nutritious, so quick, and so pretty.

This salad is completely versatile too – switch out the pine nuts for walnuts or any other nut, or leave them out completely if you’d like. Serve without the goat cheese if you’d like to. Use any herb you’d like too – dill would be fantastic. If you don’t have herbs, don’t sweat it. The beets and the vinaigrette are all you really need here.

[Recipe] Beet Salad with Maple Vinaigrette

Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side

*maple vinaigrette recipe adapted from the NB Maple Syrup Association

Salad:

2 lbs roasted beets
2 green onions
1/4 cup chopped parsley (optional – any herb will work here)
1/2 cup pine nuts (optional – any nut will work here)
1/2 cup goat cheese, crumbled (optional)

Vinaigrette:

2 Tbsp maple syrup
3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, finely minced (or 1/2 tsp garlic powder)
1 tsp salted herbs (optional – just use a pinch of salt if you don’t have these)
1/4 cup olive oil
pepper, to taste

First, let’s get the vinaigrette ready.

Put all of the ingredients for the vinaigrette except for the olive oil into a measuring cup.

If you haven’t heard of salted herbs (herbes salées), look them up. They are herbs that are cured in salt for a long period of time until they break down. They are absolutely savoury and salty. They are great for mixing into all sorts of things like eggs, soups, potatoes. They are a bit of a Québecois or an Acadian delicacy.

Add the olive oil and whisk, whisk, whisk, until the vinaigrette is well combined.

There. Vinaigrette done. Set aside.

Toast the pine nuts in a pan over low heat until they’re fragrant, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

Chop or slice the beets into chunks. Put them in a large bowl.

Slice the onions and herbs. Add to the beets, along with the pine nuts.

Add half of the vinaigrette. I didn’t find I needed the whole vinaigrette recipe for this salad. You can just store the rest in the fridge for use later in the week.

Stir the salad until well dressed.

That’s it!

We added some goat cheese to ours for serving. The salty tang is a very nice addition. I also piled it on top of a big ‘ol handful of organic baby spinach. If you’d like to, you can just mix all of this stuff together.

This paired really well with pan fried salmon, also coated with a bit of the herbes salées.

Magnifique!