A white plate topped with beet salad with goat cheese and honey and watercress leaves.

5 / 3 votes

Beet Salad with Goat Cheese and Honey

This beet salad with goat cheese and honey is a simple vegetarian meal of roasted beets, creamy goat cheese, fresh watercress, and a honey drizzle.

Prep Time30

Cook Time1

Total Time1 30

Course: Sides

Cuisine: American

Servings: servings

Calories: 320

Ingredients

▢ 3 golden beets, scrubbed clean and greens removed (about 2 inches [5 cm] in diameter)
▢ 3 red beets, scrubbed clean and greens removed (about 2 inches [5 cm] in diameter)
▢ 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
▢ Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
▢ 4 cups watercress leaves, (from 2 to 3 bunches)
▢ 4 to 6 ounces soft goat cheese, sliced into 4 rounds
▢ 1/4 cup honey

US - Metric

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400ºF (204ºC).
Divvy the beets into 2 piles—golden and red. Rip off a couple of sheets of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Rub the golden beets with 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil and then wrap them together in aluminum foil and place on a rimmed baking sheet. Repeat with the red beets and oil.
Roast the beets until tender throughout, about 1 hour. (If your beets are unusually small, start checking them for doneness after 35 minutes. That said, 1 hour did the trick for us almost every single time.) Remove the beets from the foil and place them on a plate to cool slightly or stash the plate in the fridge to speed up the cooling process.
Once the beets are cool enough to touch, use your hands or paper towels to rub the skins until they peel right off. If there are any tough areas where the skin clings to the beet, use a vegetable peeler. Chop the beets into 1-inch chunks and season them with salt and pepper.
☞ TESTER TIP: When the beets are cool enough to handle, use paper towels to rub off the skin. This will add a little more "grip" than peeling with bare hands and will keep your hands from being stained.
Lightly toss the watercress in a bowl with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil as well as salt and pepper to taste.
Arrange some golden and red beets on each plate along with a handful of watercress on the side or beneath the beets. Place some goat cheese on the side and drizzle everything on each plate with up to 1 tablespoon honey, using less if you don't have a sweet tooth. Serve the salad warm or room temperature or cold.

Notes

Beet Salad with Goat Cheese and Honey Variation

Sometimes when we share a recipe with you, our dear reader, we don’t intend for you to take the recipe as gospel. Take this beet salad recipe. It’ll certainly work to a fare thee well if you follow it verbatim. Although should you choose to use the recipe as a suggestion rather than a mandate, you’ll find that you can play around with the different categories of ingredients. Swap arugula for watercress. Use all golden beets instead of red if the additional sweetness will ensure your kids don’t scream at the sight of this salad. Opt for blue cheese in place of goat cheese. Make it your own. Then share with us in a comment (and photo!) below exactly how you did.

Nutrition