Fresh Pickled Beets

I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to attempt canned pickled beets. Well, I did the pickled part…turns out canning sounds super labor intensive and we don’t exactly have the right gear for it, so maybe another time. It’s probably for the best. I should tackle one thing at a time..first up, pickling!

Overall, the pickling process was really pretty simple.  I had most of the ingredients on hand already it was just a matter of cooking the beets correctly, then peeling them..oh and not staining everything in site while doing so.

For the pickling juice (sauce?) I chose a simple recipe from Cooking Light. There were tons of recipes that had cinnamon, nutmeg, and lots of other spices which I’m sure would be great but I was too scared to go that bold on my first attempt so I kept it simple.

Simple Pickled Beets

• 1 pound of beets
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of black peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves

First up was cooking the beets. I found that you can basically cook them by roasting them in the oven or boiling them. Both methods sounded pretty easy so I roasted them. Before throwing them on a pan, I cleaned them off (since they were pretty dirty), and cut off the stem part of the beet.

I love the color of beets..isn’t it so pretty? That being said it’ll stain the crap out of everything. But I guess at least everything will look pretty..

Next, I preheated the oven to 375 and placed the beets on tin foil. I doused them with a little olive oil-not too much though-then wrapped them up in the foil so they were in a little packet.

I basically had no idea how long these would take to took so I cooked them in 25 minute intervals. Finally, at around an hour and 15 minutes, they were done! They’re done when you can easily pierce them with a fork.

Next was the peeling! This was the most annoying part of the whole day (obviously). The little suckers were slippery from the oil so it took me like, an hour to peel them. It got done eventually! After they were peeled, I sliced them thinly and started making the pickling sauce.

To make the sauce, I mixed the vinegar and sugar in a pan and brought it to a boil, then let it cook for about 5 minutes. After it was done cooking, I added the rest of the ingredients to the mix then poured it over the beets, covered, and refrigerated. Once it was cooled off in the fridge, I took the bay leaves out-I almost forgot this part! That’s it!!

 

These turned out great!! We just bought pickled beets from Costco the other day and honestly, these were way better. I made them Sunday and I think we have like, 4 slices left. We’ve had them as a side dish and on salads and they’re awesome! I’ll definitely be making more!

I have to leave you guys with a great picture I saw on none other than Pinterest. I know you’ve all seen those bumper stickers people have on the back of their car showing off the mileage they run/bike/swim whatever…so if you don’t do any of those things…I’m sure you’ll appreciate this one:

My husband wants to put it on the back of our car :).

 

Back to beets! Do you like beets? How do you prepare them?