Beet Blue Cheese Walnut Salad

I’m not overly fond of eating salad for dinner but do enjoy a nice starter salad, especially when out to eat at a fancy steak house. I’ve had a beet salad or two in my day at my local steakhouse, 555 East and thoroughly enjoyed the taste and the experience. After eyeing up some golden beets the other day at the grocery store I thought I could recreate a nice 555-esque beet starter salad at home.

So I perused the internet for a good looking salad recipe to try and loosely followed a beet salad recipe found at Savor the Best, omitting the red onions. I say “loosely” because I generally don’t measure salad ingredients. You will see exact measurements in the recipe below.

Here’s what happens every time I buy beets: I get sick of them after one serving of whatever food I make that contains the beets. Which tells me I like beets more in theory than I do in practicality. Annoyingly I bought a big tub of greens at Costco intending to eat beet salad for days. And after one salad I was done with both beets and salads for the week.  I am normally not a big fan of wasting food but in this instance didn’t feel bad about eventually throwing out the rest of the roasted beets. (They were only $1.99!)

At any rate it really was a good salad despite my lackluster attitude toward eating another beet salad the next night or any night thereafter. But I would suggest making this salad only if one of the two applies to your situation: you really love beets and/or you are sharing this salad with family or friends.

ingredients.

• 3 medium or 6 small fresh beets
• 2 T. olive oil
• 6 c. washed mixed greens
• 4 oz blue cheese, crumbled
• ½ c. toasted walnuts
• balsamic vinaigrette

directions.

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F
2. Cut the beet tops off of the beet roots to one inch and discard. Do not cut the root end, scrub the soil off the beets and dry with a paper towel. Place the beets in a zip top plastic bag with the oil and roll the beets around to coat them well with the oil. Place the beets in an oven-proof dish and transfer to the middle rack of the oven. Roast them for approximately 45-60 minutes, depending on the size of the beets, or until a sharp paring knife shows just a little resistance when inserted into the beet near the top. They should be tender but not mushy-soft. Remove and set aside to cool.
3. When beets are cool enough to handle, trim off the remaining top and the long skinny, rat-tail root. With the back side of a table knife, push or lightly scrape the skin off the beets. I do this under a stream of cold running water.
4. Add the salad greens to a large bowl, drizzle 4-6 tablespoons of the vinaigrette on the greens, toss to combine. Top the dressed greens with the onion slices, crumbled blue cheese and toasted walnuts. Arrange the sliced beets on the top and serve immediately. Alternatively, divide the dressed greens onto six salad plates and top each with the beets, cheese, walnuts and a drizzle of the dressing.

Recipe rating: 