How to Cook Beets

Knowing how to cook beets three ways — boiling, steaming, and roasting — is a great back-pocket culinary skill that lends itself to thousands of recipes. Whether you’re making a wintery salad with nuts and greens, a pretty pink pesto sauce for pasta, or a creamy dip for crudité, beets are a highly versatile and vitamin-packed root veggie that’s easier to cook than you might think. 

These three methods for cooking beets are straightforward, low on prep work, and extremely forgiving. Especially if you’re boiling or steaming your beets, they’re hard to overcook, so don’t worry about nailing the timing exactly right. Beets come in a range of shapes and sizes, and it’s surprisingly easy to tailor each cooking method to your bunch. Expect larger beets to take up to an hour to steam or boil, while smaller roots can cook in as little as 20 minutes. Fresher veggies, that have been harvested more recently, will also cook faster. 

If this is your first time cooking beets, don’t be intimidated by their density or color (yes, your cutting board might look a little like a crime scene by the time dinner’s ready, but it’s all worth it). These sweet and earthy roots add a spot of brightness to any menu.  

• You can use any color or variety of beets you want. These methods will work with whichever ones you have. For a showstopping dish, try a medley of various colors, such as yellow, pink, and deep red.  
• I walk you through how to cook beets three ways. Many recipes call for cooking beets just one way, but here I give you three different methods so you can pick the one that’ll work best for you depending on how much time you have and whether you’d rather go with an oven or stovetop. 

• Beets: For best results, pick up a bunch that still has its greens attached, as the greens help keep the roots fresh and prevent drying out after they’re picked. Leaving part of the greens attached prevents more of the beet color from bleeding into the water when steaming and boiling. You can also cook the beet greens separately for a tasty side dish. 
• Seasonings: Beets bring a lot of flavor to the table all on their own, so you don’t need much more than a drizzle of good-quality olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. However, you can endlessly change up the flavorings after your beets are cooked. Feel free to add your favorite spice blends, fresh citrus juice, or maybe a garlicky vinaigrette to dress your beets for a classic room-temperature salad. 

The three best methods for cooking whole beets are to boil, steam, or roast them.

This is probably the simplest method for cooking beets. Start with a generous amount of well-salted boiling water. Then add your cleaned and trimmed beets, return the water to a simmer, and cook until your roots are easily pierced with a paring knife. 

To peel cooked beets, you’ll want to cool them well under cold water. Then simply press your thumbs into the veggies and watch as the thin skin slides easily away. I like to do this step under running water as it rinses the skin away as I work.

If you have a steamer basket, steaming the beets yields bright-pink, super-tender veggies that are delicious (and beautiful) in a salad. You’ll need a couple of inches of boiling water under your steamer basket of beets. They’ll cook in 20 to 40 minutes, depending on the size of the veggies, and they’re ready when they’re easily pierced with a paring knife. 

Again, let the beets cool under cold water and press away the skins before slicing and serving them how you like. 

Roasting the veggies concentrates their flavor and yields a chewier and darker result. For this method, you’ll want to cut the beets before cooking (leaving the edible skins on) so they don’t dry out or burn in the oven and so they cook evenly. Coat the sliced beets in olive oil and season them with salt on a baking sheet, then roast until they’re tender all the way through. 

Beets are a great veggie to prepare ahead of time.  You can store cooked beets in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days. 

I don’t recommend freezing beets, as their texture will become mushy when they’re defrosted. However, you can freeze prepared dishes like dips and puréed soups made with cooked beets. 

You can enjoy any of these beet recipes on their own as a simple side dish, but the veggies also lend themselves to countless other dishes, including the following:

• Golden Beet and Barley Salad with Rainbow Chard
• Beet & Sweet Potato Stacks
• Cabbage Beet Coleslaw
• Smoky Beet Hummus
• Roasted Beet Soup with Fennel and Orange