How To Cook Beets

"The beet is the most intense of vegetables.” Beet or beetroots are edible root vegetables. Beet is high in nutritional value since it is an excellent source of carbohydrates, proteins and dietary fibres. Beet is also a rich source of iron, calcium, folic acid, antioxidants, essential vitamins and minerals. Beets have long been used by herbalists and traditional healers because of its nutritional content that helps deal with many health issues. Beets are used in salads, to garnish recipes, to make soups, sauces, jams, jellies and can also be eaten raw or in any of its cooked form. The nutritional value of beets can be enjoyed by a person either by adding them to a particular dish to enhance the colour and taste or can be enjoyed alone by cooking them and serving with butter, salt and pepper. There are various ways in which one can cook beets without losing the essential vitamins in the process.

Cooking Beets

Boiling

Trim out the roots and leaf stalks from the beets to about an inch. Wash them under cool running water making sure that you don’t scrub the skin too hard while washing.
Make sure that you don’t cut or slice off any part of the beet for the skin to remain intact.
Once the beets are trimmed and cleaned, place them in a large pot and cover them with cold water. Add a tea spoon of sugar and salt and cover the pot.
Turn on the gas to high and let the water boil before reducing the heat to medium and then to keep it heating over simmer.
Cook the beets for 45 minutes to an hour or until they get tender. Once they are cooked, remove from heat and drain out the water, shifting the beets to cold water.
You can serve these freshly cooked beets either sliced or mashed along with little butter and salt and pepper for taste.

Oven Roasted Beets

Preheat the oven to 400^o F. Meanwhile, wash, peel and quarter the beets.
Arrange the beet pieces on a baking sheet and drizzle with 2 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Season them with salt and pepper and then toss them until well coated in oil, salt and pepper.
Cook the beets in preheated oven for about 45 minutes or until the beets get tender. Make sure to turn them at least once during the cooking time.

Baked Beets

Prepare the oven by preheating it to 400^o F.
Wash the beets and leave 1 inch ends on the stems and roots of the beet. Also leave the skin on and wrap them in two layers of aluminium foil.
Place the foil wrapped beets on the baking sheet and put the sheet in the oven. Cook the beets for about an hour or until they are fully cooked.
Once the beets get cooked, remove the foil and then trim off the stalk and root ends. Rub the skin off with a damp towel.

Steam Beets

Prepare the beets by washing them and trimming the roots and stems leaving behind 1 inch each as per in case of boiling. Place the prepared beets in a steamer on top of boiling water.
Position the steamer on top of the pot full of boiling salted water.
Now arrange the cleaned beets in the steamer, cover them and cook for about 45 minutes or until they turn tender.
Remove beets from heat after they get cooked and put them in cold water. Once cool remove their skin with the help of a damp towel.

Microwave Cooked Beets

Wash and peel the beets and then cube them into 1 inch size.
Arrange the cubed beets in a glass microwave resistant vessel, add 2 tablespoon of water for every ½ cup of beets.
Cover the vessel with a lid then cook them on high for approximately 5 minutes. Stir them and cook until the beets are tender.
Make sure that you don’t overcook the beets in microwave and also don’t add more water in order to preserve as much vitamins as possible.

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