The Golden Thing About Gold Beets

Sometimes you hear the saddest stories about people living in broken households—one member of the party loves beets, while the other person can’t stand them.

Friend, if you find yourself in this situation, I give you hope. It’s possible someday you too will be able to find common ground in that Switzerland of vegetables, the golden beet.

Sometimes people who dislike beets are carrying a negative association of them from the past. Others are bothered by a taste that reminds them strongly of dirt. I can attest to the real life difficulty of influencing associations as powerful as these. If you’re up for trying, gird yourself with the understanding that while golden beets share much of the impressive nutritional profile of regular beets, they are also lower in geosmin, the earthy smelling compound that gives beets the bad rep—and beet lovers like us the menu complications.

Here’s what to do.

Just like apples and many other pale fruits of the Earth, cut surfaces of golden beets will oxidize and turn gray on you. When prepping gold beets ahead, we like to toss them in salt and a bit of lemon juice, and keep them in a clear glass container in the fridge. Their beauty will call to you, and perhaps, yes, others you know.

Throw them into any salad, shake off the lemon juice and use them as a vehicle for hummous, or eat them just so.

I hope this helps you.