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Golden Beet and Pomegranate Salad

Beautiful golden beet salad peppered with ruby red pomegranate seeds, served on a bed of arugula and lettuce greens.

Elise Bauer

Elise founded Simply Recipes in 2003 and led the site until 2019. She has an MA in Food Research from Stanford University.

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Elise Bauer
Elise Bauer
Golden Beet Pomegranate Salad
Elise Bauer

Now here's a salad for the fall!

Cheerful and bright golden beets, roasted and then simmered with red onions in a sweet and sour orange glaze, tossed with garnet pomegranate arils and served on a bed of arugula and lettuce greens.

This recipe is adapted from one I received from a neighbor years ago, a recipe she had pulled from an old issue of Sunset magazine.

The original recipe was a bit fussier, and used regular beets. I think golden beets provide a much better contrast to the ruby red pomegranate arils, don't you?

Another benefit of golden beets is that they don't bleed red all over everything, yet they taste pretty much the same as a red beet.

Golden Beet and Pomegranate Salad
Elise Bauer

Pomegranates come into season in the fall; you should be able to find them in the Northern Hemisphere from October through December. We have a wonderfully productive pomegranate tree that usually starts giving us fruit at the end of October.

Don't know how to open a pomegranate? Check out our instructions, How to Cut and De-Seed a Pomegranate. It's easy!

Golden Beet and Pomegranate Salad

Prep Time 5 mins
Cook Time 75 mins
Total Time 80 mins
Servings 4 servings
If you want to boil the beets instead of roasting them, put the beets in a small saucepan. Cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 45 minutes or until tender.

Ingredients

  • 3 golden beets (about 1 pound)
  • 1 cup diced red onion
  • 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1/4 cup orange juice ( can sub with 3 Tbsp Triple Sec)
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon orange zest
  • 1 cup pomegranate seeds
  • 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil for the salad, plus 1/2 teaspoon more for roasting the beets
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon black or white pepper
  • 2 cups arugula and/or butter lettuce leaves
  • 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

Method

  1. Roast the beets:

    Rub the beets with a little olive oil, wrap them together in foil, place them in a roasting pan, and roast them at 400°F for an hour or until tender when poked with the tines of a fork.

    Remove from oven. Remove the peels from the beets. Dice the beets into bite-sized pieces.

  2. Make the glaze:

    Put the diced cooked beets, onions, vinegar, water, orange juice, orange zest, sugar, salt, and pepper, in a skillet on high heat.

    Heat the mixture to a boil, and continue to boil, stirring often, until the liquid is reduced to a glaze, about 2 tablespoons (5 minutes or so). Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

  3. Assemble the salad:

    Stir pomegranate seeds and olive oil into the beet mixture and add more salt and pepper to taste.

    Serve on top of salad greens and sprinkle with feta cheese.