How do you preserve beets? Making Old Fashioned Pickled beets is one of my favorite ways preserve beets!
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Beets? Love Them or Hate Them?
Beets are kind of polarizing like cilantro. It seems that you either love them or hate them, there is not much gray area. I am most decidedly on the love side. I have loved them for as long as I can remember. Growing up the only way we had beets was pickled. My grandmother had a Polish/Lithuanian background and we had pickled beets fairly often, though I don’t actually remember her canning any. I remember her opening cans of beets and then serving them in a pickling type brine. I never even knew there was such a thing as roasted beets.
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Such a Variety of Foods Today!
As I’m writing this, I pause to think about children today. With the internet and TV, they are exposed to more food than I even knew existed when I was growing up. The only variation in what you ate was when you visited a friend’s house who might have a different cultural influence, but in my suburb in St. Louis, even that wasn’t easy to find. Pizza was made from a Chef Boyardee Pizza Kit. If we wanted Chinese it was La Choy Chow Mein with the crispy noodles. We didn’t even know there was such a thing as Thai food, never heard of a Kalamata olive.
Old Fashioned Pickled Beets
It’s funny, but I got off on a tangent on how far we’ve come eating and my post today is about something probably as old as the hills. Pickled beets. Even with all the new flavors and tastes open to us, there is still plenty of room for a pantry filled with simple put up foods, like pickled beets. I am tickled pink (ha!) to have these jars lined up on my shelves – an easy side dish just waiting to happen.
As with all my canning recipes, I suggest that you get a comprehensive canning book or use the internet. If you are looking for canning inspiration and techniques, I love Punk Domestics and Food in Jars. I found this recipe in The Joy of Pickling: 250 Flavor-Packed Recipes for Vegetables and More from Garden or Market (Revised Edition)
. I modified it a bit in that I used pickling spice instead of the cinnamon, allspice, and cloves that the recipe called for. I didn’t want those flavors, I wanted a more standard pickled flavor.
Pickled Beets
Ingredients
- 7 pounds beets with their rootlets and 2 inches of their tops, well scrubbed
- 3 tablespoons pickling spices
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup light brown sugar firmly packed
- 2 teaspoons pickling salt
- 1 quart cider vinegar
- 2 cups water
Instructions
- Put the beets in a large pot and cover with boiling water. Return the water to a boil and boil them for about 15-35 minutes depending on their size. You want them just tender.
- Drain the beets and cover them with cold water. When they are cool, trim them and slip off their skins. Halve or quarter them or slice into 1/4 inch slices.
- Place the spices in a cheesecloth bag. Place the bag and the sugars, salt, vinegar and water in a non-reactive pot. Bring to a boil, stirring until the sugars dissolve. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
- While the liquid simmers, pack the beets in pint or quart mason jars (properly sterilized per general canning instructions). Pour the hot liquid over the beets leaving a 1/2 inch headspace. Close the jars with two piece caps (processed per canning instructions). Process the jars for 30 minutes in a boiling-water bath.
- Store the jars in a cool, dry place for at least 3 weeks before eating. After opening store the jar in the fridge. You might want to consider saving the juice for pickled eggs.
Notes
Nutrition
Some other ways to use beets!
Superfood Salad with Beets and Blood Oranges
You are right about beets! My brother and love beets, my other 2 siblings hate beets! I’ve have never pickled my own! Great idea!
I discovered pickled beets at the tables of my many Russian friends for whom it’s a staple, delicious! I’m looking forward to make my own thanks to your recipe and offer them 🙂
I love pickled beets! My mom made them once a month and used to drink the juice too! This recipe reminds me of my childhood!
Beets are definitely one of my favorite root veggies ever. I have seriously never tried pickling, but I really need to. This sounds lovely!
Pickled beets are so fantastic!! I have a deviled egg recipe that uses some chopped pickled beet plus horseradish and chive 🙂
I could eat pickled beets for DAYS. Especially good with some crumbled feta or goat cheese and microgreens with citrus wedges. YUM.
I love beets – even the stains on my hands make me smile. Though I’m not so much into canning, I could make these and simply put them in the refrigerator. Then I’d always have a few chunks of beets for my salads and not have to even think about buying hose dreadful jars of beets from the supermarket.
Love the idea of pickling beets! They are so colorful 🙂 Btw, love that you have a cat section on your blog 🙂
I am firmly in the LOVE beets category, so I’m not sure why I have never tried to pickle them – I see a great weekend project 🙂 thanks for the recipe
I am going to have to revisit beets. You are convincing me.
I adore both cilantro and pickled beets! These sound absolutely divine to me.
A girl after my own heart! I love beets and do quite a bit of canning. I will definitely be giving this a try!
So cool to see a recipe for pickled beets! My dad used to make them when I was a kid. He’d then use the liquid to make red pickled eggs (which I know probably sound pretty gross, but were actually pretty good!). I would definitely love to try my hand at making them!
I don’t know why I’ve never made these…I love them. My mother made them and often made a salad with them. My siblings ( and my kids) never liked them. Their loss.
Your Pickled Beets look wonderful, we just love Pickled Beets! Hope you are having a great weekend and thanks so much for sharing this awesome post with Full Plate Thursday.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen
I love pickled beets and have them nearly every day on my salad. In cooking for a diabetic, I learned how to make them sugar free, and I’m sure it would apply to raw, fresh beets as well, but I use canned sliced beets. I empty 3 cans of beets, with juice, into a saucepan, and add 1 cup of Splenda and 3/4 cup of cider vinegar. Simmer for 15 minutes, then put the beets into a quart jar and cover with the juice. Cool, then refrigerate. Let them sit for 2 or 3 days before eating so they develop full flavor. They last a long time; I keep them in the refrigerator for at least 2 or 3 weeks with no problems at all. They are simply delicious! The nice thing is, though, that they are something that cannot be purchased anywhere, and would make a nice gift, along with the recipe, for those who have to live sugar-free but love pickled beets.
I was tickled to see someone with canning items on foodepix. Beautiful!
Yes! I do love pickled beets:) So good on so many things all year long – well actually, I kind of ate mine really quick because they were so delicious! Thanks for sharing.
You are right about love / hate beets thing. Fortunately, people around me love beet dishes…
I made pickled beets few time, but not lately, so thanks for reminding me 🙂
Guess my mom didn’t like beets as she never made them. But the Chef Boyardee Pizza Kit–yes! She made that! But there was another pizza kit that she made too, I’m trying to think of the name of it, I liked the sauce from that kit better. I think it came in a smaller red box whereas the Chef Boyardee pizza kit came in a larger yellow box?
No – Nope – Nah! can’t touch pickled beets. Blerrrrggh! Still in therapy. You do make them look attractive though.
My husband hates beets with a passion, and, as such, all of my children have a healthy distrust of and distaste for them. I am completely indifferent to them; my mother served canned beets often, and they were not as bad as some of her other offerings. Yours are very pretty; enjoy them!
I grew up in St. Louis also. Not until I moved to CA did I realize there was Chinese food that didn’t come out of a red La Choy box. we always had pickles, pickled beets and some sort of pickled vegetable from the store on the table.
Thanks for the inspiration, I really want to make these. I love beets but was with a friend recently who couldn’t stand it because I had beets on my salad and even said he could smell them and hated the smell. Luckily my husband likes beets also.
Pickled beets…roasted beets…love beets! My grandmother used to have them on the table with pickles every lunch and dinner and I miss that so much…thanks for the memories. Yours look marvelous.
My mom always made hers..beautiful like yours..My mother-in-law used canned beets..rinsed them and added her mix..:)