Roasted beetroot salad with feta, walnuts and arugula
Beetroot roasted in foil until sweet and concentrated, cut into wedges over arugula, with salty feta, toasted walnuts and thin red onion. A dressing of oil, honey and lemon pulls sweet, salty and bitter into one. The oven works alone for nearly an hour; your part is a quarter of an hour.
Your own work in that: 15 min.
- Beetroot roasting 50 min
- Cooling 10 min
- Assembling 15 min
Step by step
0 / 5 doneRoast the beetroot in foil
Heat the oven to 200 °C. Scrub the beetroot, don't peel, wrap each one separately in foil. Roast on a tray 45–60 minutes, until a knife slides in without resistance. The time depends on size: a small beetroot 45 minutes, a large one over an hour.
Ingredients: 600 g beetroot · 100 g arugula (rocket) · 150 g feta · 60 g walnuts · ½ pcs red onion
TipRoasting instead of boiling: the beetroot cooks in its own juices, no water washes out the flavour, and the sweetness is clearer and deeper. It is the biggest difference in this salad.
In foil, 200 °C, knife without resistancePeel and cut
Open the foil and cool the beetroot 10 minutes. Rub the skin off with a paper towel (gloves help): after roasting it comes away almost on its own. Cut into wedges 1.5 cm thick.
Skin rubs off with a towel, wedgesToast the walnuts, soak the onion
Toast the walnuts in a dry pan 3 minutes, shaking, until fragrant; break into halves. Slice the onion into very thin rings and drop into cold water for 5 minutes to lose its bite. Drain.
TipToasting brings out the aroma of the nuts: toasted, they are crunchier, slightly sweet and less astringent than raw. Watch them, because fragrant to burnt is half a minute.
Walnuts in a dry pan, onion in waterMake the dressing
In a small jar shake the oil, honey, lemon juice, vinegar, salt and pepper until the dressing thickens and turns cloudy. Taste: it should be distinctly sharp, because the beetroot and honey pull towards sweet.
Ingredients: 3 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil · 1 tsp honey · ½ pcs lemon, juice · 1 tsp cider or balsamic vinegar · ½ tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
Oil, honey, lemon, shakenAssemble just before serving
Spread the arugula on a platter, the beetroot wedges over it, crumbled feta, walnuts and onion. Dress only at the table: arugula under dressing wilts in a quarter of an hour, and the beetroot stains the feta pink. Serve with bread or beside roast meat.
Arugula, beetroot, feta, walnuts, dressing last
Before you start
With goat's cheese
Instead of feta, 120 g soft goat's cheese in slices, 2 minutes under the oven grill. A warmer, more refined version.
With orange
Segments of one orange without membranes among the beetroot, and orange juice instead of lemon in the dressing. Wintry, sweeter.
Beetroot in advance
Roast a kilo at once: peeled, in a closed container, it keeps up to 5 days in the fridge. The salad is then 10 minutes on a weeknight.
