Beetroot Salad

Lunch, Salad

Roasted beetroot, sliced thin and arranged on a plate, dressed with a sharp Dijon mustard and lemon vinaigrette, scattered with toasted pine nuts and a handful of microgreens. Earthy, sharp, and a little nutty. A proper French starter that takes almost no time to assemble once the beetroot is done.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Servings 4

Ingredients 

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For the beetroot

• 800 gr beetroot raw, about 4 medium, unpeeled
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• salt and black pepper

For the Dijon vinaigrette

• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp mustard Dijon
• ½ tsp wholegrain mustard
• 1 shallot
• salt and black pepper

To finish

• 40 gr pine nuts toasted
• 40 gr microgreens or pea shoots
• flat-leaf parsley
• lemon wedges to serve

Equipment

• baking dish
• aluminum foil
• knife
• chopping board
• small jar with lid for the vinaigrette

Instructions

• 1. Roast the beetroot

  Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180°C fan. Scrub the beetroot, leaving the skin on, it protects the flesh during roasting and comes off easily afterwards. Rub with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, wrap each one individually in foil, and place in a roasting tin. Roast for 55–60 minutes until completely tender when pierced with a knife. The time varies with size, a large beetroot may need 75 minutes.

  Remove from the oven, open the foil parcels, and leave to cool until comfortable to handle. Peel by rubbing the skin off with your hands, it slips off easily. The beetroot will stain everything it touches, including your hands, so either work quickly or use gloves.
• 2. Make the vinaigrette

  Put all the vinaigrette ingredients in a small jar, seal, and shake well. Taste and adjust, it should be sharp and punchy, with the mustard coming through clearly. Set aside.
• 3. Toast the pine nuts

  Put the pine nuts in a dry frying pan over a medium heat and toast for 2–3 minutes, stirring regularly, until golden. Watch them carefully, they go from golden to burnt in about 30 seconds. Tip onto a plate immediately and leave to cool.
• 4. Slice and assemble

  Slice the cooled beetroot. Fan the beetroot slices across each plate, overlapping slightly. Spoon the vinaigrette generously over the top. Scatter the toasted pine nuts, then add the microgreens and torn parsley. Finish with a lemon wedge on the side.

  Serve immediately, while the microgreens are still fresh and the vinaigrette hasn't had time to soften everything.

Notes

• Roasting beetroot rather than boiling it makes a real difference, the flavour concentrates, the sweetness deepens, and you don’t lose colour into the cooking water. It takes longer but the result is worth it.
• The beetroot can be roasted up to 2 days ahead and kept in the fridge unpeeled, wrapped in foil. Slice and assemble just before serving.
• Wholegrain mustard in the vinaigrette adds texture and a slightly less sharp flavour than Dijon alone. If you only have one, Dijon is the more important of the two.
• Pea shoots work just as well as microgreens and are easier to find. A small handful of watercress is also excellent, the peppery bite works well against the sweet beetroot.
• Pine nuts can be swapped for walnut halves. Lightly toast them in the same way.
• If you want to make this more substantial as a light lunch, a few slices of chèvre or a handful of crumbled Roquefort on top turns it into a proper meal.

About this recipe

This beetroot salad recipe is rooted in that bistro tradition, the beet salad that turns up on handwritten chalkboards all over France, usually listed quietly between the céleri rémoulade and the leeks vinaigrette, and almost always better than it sounds. It’s the kind of roasted beets salad that doesn’t announce itself. It just sits there looking deep purple and slightly glossy, and then you eat it and wonder why you don’t make it more often.

Beetroot has been growing in French kitchen gardens since the 16th century, when it arrived from Italy and was initially treated with considerable suspicion, grown mainly as a medicinal plant and livestock feed before anyone thought to put it on a plate. The French came around eventually, as they tend to with most good things, and by the 19th century this earthy, deeply coloured root vegetable had become a fixture of French home cooking and bistro menus from Paris to Provence.

Roasted Beets

The secret, if there is one, is roasting rather than boiling. A roasted beet salad is a fundamentally different thing from one made with boiled or pre-cooked vacuum-packed beetroot. Roasting concentrates the flavour, deepens the sweetness, and gives you a texture that holds up properly against the vinaigrette. Boiled beets go waterlogged and a bit flat. Roasted beets stay firm, almost silky, with an earthiness that makes the whole salad worth eating. It takes an extra hour, but it’s an unattended hour, you put them in the oven wrapped in foil and get on with other things.

Dijon vinaigrette

The Dijon vinaigrette is the other non-negotiable. French mustard, specifically Dijon mustard, made from brown mustard seeds and white wine or verjuice, has been produced in Burgundy since the 13th century, and it is the backbone of this beetroot salad recipe. Sharp, punchy, slightly creamy, it cuts through the sweetness of the roasted beets and ties the whole dish together. A teaspoon of wholegrain mustard alongside the Dijon adds texture and a slightly gentler heat. Red wine vinegar rather than lemon juice keeps it firmly in French bistro territory.

Pope John XXII, who held court in Avignon in the 14th century, was reportedly so devoted to Dijon mustard that he invented an official position, Grand Moutardier du Pape, Grand Mustard Maker to the Pope, and gave the job to his nephew. The nephew had no particular qualifications for the role, which became something of a joke in France and eventually gave rise to the phrase “se prendre pour le moutardier du pape”, to think oneself the Pope’s mustard maker, meaning someone who vastly overestimates their own importance. The mustard, at least, has always deserved the fuss. Any good beet salad recipe will tell you the same.

Elevated beet root salad

This version adds toasted pine nuts and fresh microgreens, which push the presentation toward the modern end of the bistro spectrum, the sort of thing you’d find in a good neighbourhood restaurant in Lyon or Paris rather than a village canteen. The pine nuts add a gentle, toasty crunch that works well against the softness of the roasted beets. The microgreens or pea shoots bring freshness and a little colour contrast. Neither of these additions is strictly traditional, but both make the beetroot salad recipe better, and neither is so far from French sensibility that a purist would seriously object.

What makes this beet salad worth coming back to is the simplicity. Five or six ingredients, a vinaigrette you can make in a jar, and roasted beets that do most of the work themselves. It works as a starter before something more substantial, as a side dish alongside roast chicken or a simple grilled fish, or, with a handful of goat cheese crumbled over the top, as a light lunch on its own. It’s also entirely make-ahead friendly. The roasted beets keep in the fridge for two days, and the vinaigrette keeps for a week. You assemble it at the last minute and it looks like you’ve made considerably more effort than you have.

That, in the end, is what the French beet salad is. Minimal effort, maximum return, and a vinaigrette sharp enough to make you sit up slightly. The bistro has always understood this. Now your kitchen can too.