About 20 years ago, I had a game-changing salad at a Spanish-style tapas bar called Bar César in Oakland, California. It featured beets with an incredibly earthy, sweet, concentrated flavor that I chalked up to the quality of the beets themselves. I love beets, but cooking them at home can be hit or miss in the flavor department.
After inquiring with the server, it turned out that it wasn’t a special type of beet but instead how they were cooked: in a very hot oven. I was so smitten that I bought the restaurant’s cookbook just for the beet recipe!
In the book, owner Olivier Said and executive chef Molly Pond instruct you to roast beets whole and unpeeled with olive oil and aromatics in a covered baking dish at 425°F, a much higher temperature than I had ever seen. The resulting roasted beets have a rich, caramelized flavor that is head and shoulders better than other beet recipes I’ve tried. Their covered steam-roasting method also softens the tough beet skins so they slip off easily with just your fingertips; no peeler needed! Once I learned this trick, I never looked back.
Why the High-Heat Roasting Method Works
Boiling beets in water dilutes their flavor in the cooking liquid, so I prefer to roast them. However, roasting beets by themselves at moderate temperatures (350°F to 400°F) yields beets that taste fine but not amazing. Roasting beets at a higher temperature caramelizes their natural sugars, making them sweeter and more concentrated in flavor.
If you’re worried about them burning, don’t be. Covering the baking pan tightly with foil traps the steam created by the beets as they heat up, which in turn speeds up the cooking time and loosens their peels. While the edges of the pan may darken a bit, the beets themselves never burn, even after an hour or more in the moist environment of the covered pan.
Adding olive oil to the baking dish helps to keep the juices from the beets from burning and helps conduct heat so the beets cook more evenly. Adding whole garlic cloves and a few sprigs of fresh thyme, rosemary, or oregano creates fragrant steam and infuses the beets and olive oil with their flavor.
Never one to waste good olive oil, I pour off the fragrant oil left in the baking pan into a bowl and use it to make a vinaigrette that I dress the beets with. Once dressed, the beets will hold well in the refrigerator for up to one week, so I often make a double batch and use them in salads and as a side dish throughout the week.
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How To Roast Beets Using the High-Heat Method
- Start with one pound of beets that are all about the same size and put them in a baking dish where they will fit snugly. Toss with 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper. Tuck a few garlic cloves, a few sprigs of thyme or rosemary, and a bay leaf into the pan and cover tightly with foil.
- Roast the beets in a 425°F oven for about an hour, or until you can easily insert a skewer into the largest beet. Times will vary on the size and density of the beets.
- Cool the beets, partially covered, before sliding the peels off with your fingertips. Rinse your hands frequently to prevent staining, or use a paper towel to help you slip off the beet skins.
- To dress the beets, make a 2:1 vinaigrette with the oil in the roasting pan (discard the herb sprigs and bay leaf) and your favorite kind of vinegar. I add minced shallots and plenty of salt to balance the sweetness of the beets.
- Store the beets in the vinaigrette for up to one week in the refrigerator. They last longer than plain beets because of the vinegar.
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