Rainbow beet salad with feta and mint—a gorgeous, satisfying side dish that’s everyday easy.
This delicious beet salad is not only a colorful side, it’s also hearty, quick to assemble and full of flavor. Topped with a lemon mint dressing and garnished with fragrant toasted pine nuts, sweet mandarins, fresh mint and a few generous pinches of kosher salt, this beet dish makes for happy tastebuds.
With all these glorious colors I’m thinking this might be a festive addition to my holiday table, one that’s light and fresh and pairs nicely with all the other traditional dishes.
I like to serve this up family style with the beets and feta sliced and layered upon each other, as opposed to chopping everything up into bites, which, just to note, would still taste A-mazing, but then we’d lose all those pretty colorful layers.
Let me tell you what else I love about this salad. It’s bananas easy to assemble. And if you cook the beets in advance, HIGH FIVES to you. All you’ll need is a few minutes to dry toast your pine nuts, blitz the dressing, and then you’re on to plating.
Folks, see my recipe notes on how to easily cook beets by boiling them with the skin on. SO much easier, and less messy, to peel them after they’re cooked.
Another gorgeous side salad to adorn your holiday table—this crunchy brussels sprout slaw.
Happy feasting!
Rainbow Beet Salad with Feta and Mint
Ingredients
- 4 medium/large beets (2 yellow, 2 red) cooked and peeled
- 1/2 cup feta sliced
- 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
- 1/4 cup mandarins (about a dozen or so wedges) I used canned
- 1/4 cup mint roughly chopped plus extra leaves tossed about to garnish
- kosher salt and pepper to taste
Lemon mint dressing
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- juice of half a lemon
- 1 tbsp plain yogurt
- 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
- a good pinch of kosher salt
- fresh pepper to taste
Instructions
- Cook four medium to large beets using your preferred method (steamed, boiled etc.) See the notes below on how I cook my beets. Once cooled, slice beets into 1/4 inch thick rounds and place on the serving dish in rows, alternating the colors (one yellow row, one red row) -- slightly overlapping the slices.
- While the beets are cooking, in a small, dry pan (over medium heat) lightly toast the pine nuts until fragrant and lightly browning — no more than five minutes. Set aside.
- Slice your block of feta into 1/4 inch wedges and tuck them in between the beet slices.
- Top with mandarins, chopped mint, toasted pine nuts, a few generous pinches of kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.
- Finish off with a drizzle of lemon mint dressing, reserving the rest for the table (so dinners can add extra dressing as they please).
Lemon mint dressing
- In a small food processor or blender, blitz oil, lemon, yogurt, mint and salt and pepper. Serve over salad. * Alternatively, finely mince mint leaves, combine with other ingredients and shake in a sealed mason jar until well combined.
Leave a Reply