Need to Brighten Up a Meal? This Salad Delivers on All Fronts.
Many times I will roast more beets than I need at the moment. It’s just as easy to roast a couple pounds as it is to roast only a few. I roast mine by placing scrubbed and trimmed beets on a large piece of foil, drizzling on a little olive oil, folding up the foil tightly, placing it on a sheet pan, and letting it bake at 400° for about an hour. Then I just wait for them to cool and rub off their skins with a paper towel. Easy as can be. And they taste so much better than those pre-cooked beets you can buy in the store.
I typically use a pound of beets at a time, so I then have a pound of roasted beets waiting in the fridge for later on in the week. There are so many ways to use them. You can slice the beets and heat them up with some butter, mash them with some cream, blitz them in the food processor with some tahini, chop them up and pickle them, etc. Or I can use them in a great salad or side dish, as I did here.
Sliced roasted beets and honey crisp apples are simply sprinkled with a little red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper, and gently stirred together until the apples turn bright pink from the beet juice.
In the meantime, I stirred together sour cream, freshly grated horseradish, finely chopped walnuts, a tiny bit of sugar, salt, and pepper. Fresh horseradish is an ingredient worth keeping on hand. I buy a big piece and keep it in my freezer. Then when I want it, I just hack off a chunk while it’s still frozen, peel it, and grate it on a microplane. It has a much cleaner and more intense taste than prepared horseradish you can buy in a jar. But when I combined it with the other ingredients, it mellowed and wasn’t too hot at all.
Right before I served the salad, I drizzled walnut oil onto the beets and apples and tossed on a few pieces of toasted walnuts. I kept the sauce in a separate bowl and let everyone spoon on as much as they liked. The deep earthy flavor of the beets was perfectly complimented by the tart/sweet apples. Beets and apples are a classic combination for a reason.
And that sauce? It was good enough to eat on its own. I found myself spreading it on the flatbreads I served with the meal. But when eaten with the beets and apples, it really turned the salad into something special. The horseradish didn’t overpower the sauce. It only served to give the sour cream and walnut based sauce a bit of a bite, which kept it from being too rich. Really really delicious.
Beets and Apples with Horseradish Walnut Sauce
6
servingsSliced roasted beets and fresh honey crisp apples make up this salad. But the dressing made with sour cream, fresh horseradish, and finely chopped walnuts puts this over the top!
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Ingredients
3 large roasted beets, (1 pound) chilled and sliced into 1/2 inch wide wedges
2 large honey crisp apples, chilled and sliced into 1/4 inch wide wedges
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
70 g (1/2 cup) walnuts halves, toasted and finely chopped - BUT hold back 2 tablespoons that will be roughly chopped for garnish
1 cup sour cream
25 grams fresh horseradish, finely grated on a microplane
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
Large pinch of salt and black pepper
5 g (small handful) flat leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped
Walnut oil
Directions
- In a medium size bowl, stir together the sour cream, horseradish, finely chopped walnuts, sugar, salt, and pepper. Stir in the parsley, saving a little for garnish. Set aside.
- Stir together the beets, apples, vinegar, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir gently until the apples are tinted pink from the beets. Spoon the beets and apples onto a platter. Drizzle with a little walnut oil. Serve with the horseradish sauce on the side.
2 Responses
Sounds wonderful, Renee, and I can’t wait to try this with my home grown horseradish. I think there’s a typo in step one. What’s a salute?
Oh my gosh!! Thank you so much for letting me know about this error. How in the heck did walnuts turn into salutes??? Lol!!! I’ve updated it now and all is well. I hope you enjoy it!!