Beetroot leaves

Jayar

Not sure whether to post this here or on the greenfingered board. Oh decisions decions.
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that cooked beetroot tops taste great.
I harvested enough beetroot for tonight's tea and I had heard that you could cook the leaves just like spinach. I wasn't too sure about the idea, but nothing ventured nothing gained, so I cut out the central rib and shredded the rest. Melted some butter in a pan and added the leaves with a tiny bit of salt and pepper. Sauted them for about 10 mins and tasted them. They were still a bit tough so I let them cook out until they were almost crispy.
They were really good, almost like spinach but a much nicer flavour. Apparently they are chock full of vitamin A too, don't know how much of that would be left after I cooked the bejabbers out of them though:o
The beetroot was nice too

Quasar

Yes beet greens are a wonderful alternative to spinach - full of beta carotene (which the body converts into vitamin A), iron, magnesium, calcium and other minerals, not to mention quite a bit of Vitamins C, B and E.

A couple of generous servings per week of greens such as these provide a healthy dose of beta carotene, which has other beneficial actions in the body apart from becoming vitamin A.

Glad you love them - keep at it

liney

I have some home grown beetroot, and although i know baby leaves can be eaten in salad, are the large full grown leaves any good for anything? I have just trimmed the roots to boil and the stalks smell lovely. I have googled but haven't come up with much to be honest, or should i just compost them?

ceridwen

Steamed for 2/3 minutes and eaten as veg. with a bit of olive oil and fresh-squeezed lemon juice.

hotcookie101

I got my first veg box today :j, we are having steak for dinner(not from the box obviously :rotfl:), and planning on doing it with slow fried spuds with pancetta in the remoska, and then was going to saute scallions and cabbage for a side dish, BUT I got beetroot in the box, with all the leaves, and I was thinking I could shred them and add them near the end to the cabbage? Just the leaves, will use beetroot elsewhere?

melliec

I'm sure that will work...beetroot leaves taste quite earthy but as long as you like that then no problem.:)

Pink.

Hi hotcookie,

Yes it will work. There's an earlier thread on using beetroot leaves in cooking:

Cooking Beetroot leaves

I'll add your thread to that one later to keep the replies together.

Pink

DianneB

Really glad I saw this, I was just going to feed the tops to my sons chickens!!

oldMcDonald

This may be a silly question, but I'm going to ask it anyway

Can you eat beetroot leaves?

I've just been preparing some beetroot to cook and I realised how similar to chard beetroot leaves looked. Thought someone here might know if they are edible?

valk_scot

Yes, totally. You can buy bags of posh salad leaves that include baby beetroot leaves, for example. I grow beetroot on my allotment and I add shredded young beetroot leaves to soup etc, though as they get older they can get a bit tough. The rabbit next door gets these ones as an ocassional treat.

oldMcDonald

Wow, what a quick reply! Thanks for that, valk_scot.

Most of the leaves I have here are not baby ones, but I will shred them and chuck them in the slow cooker stew tonight - if they turn out to be too tough then people will just have to pick them out

Really pleased you can eat them, it feels much less wasteful to eat them rather than chuck them on the compost.

Thanks again