Beets work with fruit, cheese, nuts, and chicken. These three beet salads offer a sweet-savory feta and pear version, a prune and walnut version, and a chicken-based option.
Three ways to build a beet salad
Beet Salad with Feta and Pear balances earthy beets with creamy cheese and fresh fruit. Beet and Prune Salad with Walnuts uses dried fruit and nuts for a different texture. Beet and Chicken Salad adds cooked chicken when you want a more substantial plate.
Choose by ingredients and preparation
Read the recipe you choose before starting: the beets and any chicken need to be prepared according to that recipe's instructions. The three salads are linked by beets, but their dressings and other ingredients differ. Use the individual pages for exact amounts and steps rather than swapping one salad's method into another.
Recipes on this topic
A salad with beet and chicken is light and healthy but it’s so delicious that even those who hate “healthy” food will be jealous. Everyone knows the benefits of beets, which can be boiled or roasted.
This beet and prune salad is simple, amazingly tasty and incredibly healthy. It works great as a side dish and as a healthy snack, if you are watching your kilograms and wanting to improve your overall digestion. It is very important to use sweet and rich red color beets for this salad. So when buying beets check carefully that they don’t look pink or white, and that they are fresh and firm. You can use different methods to cook beets - boil, roast or cook in the microwave . If you value your time and don’t want to wait for hours for the beets to cook, check out our suggestions on how to cook beet in the microwave. There are two ways to tell if the beets are ready: they start to smell yummy, or if you poke them with a fork it’ll go in easily. The beets that are well-cooked will have the skin almost slide off when you touch it. Using a paring knife to remove the skin works way better than a vegetable peeler, alternatively you can also use a paper towel to slide off the skins. Prunes are an important ingredient in this salad. Their sweetness, chewy texture and mild taste compliments the flavors of beet. Prunes are full of nutrients and is a great source of fiber, adding prunes to your salads can significantly improve your overall digestion. You can learn more about health benefits of prunes by reading the summary of some studies. Walnuts is another important ingredient in beet and prune salad. They have higher antioxidant activity and more healthy omega-3 fats than any other common nut, they help reduce inflammation and improve heart disease risk factors. It is important to use good quality walnuts - old walnuts can be bitter and will make your beet and prune salad taste bitter as well.
This healthy and colorful salad can be a perfect addition to meat dishes, and also serve as a nice meal on its own if you prefer to pursue a vegetarian lifestyle. Beet is well-known for its indispensable health benefits. Betacyanin, a colorful pigment in beet, is an antioxidant that can significantly help your liver get rid of toxins, and thus improve its main function to keep your body clean by absorbing all the harmful chemicals from your blood. Beet also contains betaine, a substance can be used to help with some forms of depression due to its ability to relax your mind and improve general sense of well being. For healthy reasons we prefer using homemade sauces and condiments to those bought in a supermarket. There is value in making something from scratch, and you can always control what comes in a recipe and what quality product comes out of it. We used homemade pickled red onions for this beet salad. We recommend marinating some onions at the same time as you start cooking beet, or even some time in advance, it can be perfectly stored in the fridge and used for other dishes. We know that a lot of people out there like beet but don’t like to bother with cooking it because the process seems time and energy consuming. If you are one of those people, we invite you to check out our *How to cook beet* (or Easy ways to cook beet). We hope you like this beet salad as much as we do, and will learn to love beet not only for its health benefits but also for its taste and color!