Most people associate fresh, colorful salads with summer time. But you can have delicious salads, full of flavor and color even in winter. Check out this Beets Chestnuts Salad, it’s gorgeous and so perfect for when you’re hosting. It really makes for a great side dish!
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Chestnuts
Anytime I see chestnuts, I have nostalgia of my childhood. I grew up with chestnuts roasting over our wood stove, that was typical in winter time in my house.
For this salad, you can roast the chestnuts yourself or buy them already roasted. I buy mine in Costco, usually early November but just saw them online too – Roasted Chestnuts. These ones, you just open the bag and dump into the salad bowl. Easy!
Tips & Notes
I prepare beets one of two ways, you can’t really go wrong with any of them. You can boil the beets or roast them.
Whichever way you choose, make sure you cook them until they can be pierced with a fork. Then turn heat off, let cool until you can peel them. Slice them as desired.
I love roasting or boiling the beets the night before I’ll make the salad. Then next day I throw the salad together in 5 minutes or so.
For our family of 4, I use about 3 medium size beets. If you are making a bigger salad for a lot of guests, take into consideration how many other sides you’re serving. When you are serving this salad with a meat dish then prepare bigger servings, however if you have more sides like dinner rolls, potatoes etc then plan for serving size to be smaller.
Check out more beets recipes from my blog:
I also use them as topping in this Albanian New Year’s Eve salad.
Beets Chestnuts Salad
Equipment
- Medium pot
- salad bowl or salad platter
Ingredients
Salad Ingredients
- 3 medium beets
- 7 oz roasted chestnuts about 200 grams
- 0.25 white onion
- 3 ozs Spring Mix greens
Dressing
- 4 tbsps olive oil extra virgin
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 1 tsp honey
- salt/pepper to taste
Instructions
Salad
- Boil or roast the beets until you can pierce them with a fork. Boiling them takes about 40-50 minutes for medium size beets. Bigger beets will take longer to boil. If you are roasting them, set the oven to 400 degrees F (about 200 C). Let beets cool, then peel when cool enough to handle by hand. Store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Slice when it's time to add to salad.
- I used the already roasted chestnuts for this salad, about 7 ozs (200 grams) which was 2 packaged bags. If you're roasting them yourself, cut a cross shape the round side of chestnuts, add them to a baking dish and roast at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. Let cool them peel them. The skin will crack as it has gotten drier from roasting so they're easy to peel.
- Prepare the salad platter by adding the spring mix greens first. Then slice the beets and spread them out on the platter and finally add the chestnuts. Usually I let the onion sit in a container with cold water for few minutes before slicing the onion. Slice a quarter of white onion very thin over the salad.
Dressing
- Add in a jar olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, honey, salt and pepper. Close the jar and shake until all ingredients mix well.
- Pour over salad right before serving and toss it all together or you can serve salad in a platter for everyone to individually serve on their plate, then each person adds dressing on their plate as desired. If I don't toss the salad myself, I usually double on the dressing to make sure I have enough for everyone.
Notes
- If you can’t find spring mix, arugula is a great alternative.
- For a milder dressing replace balsamic vinegar with white wine vinegar.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please save the below image to your boards in Pinterest. Let me know in comments or social media what’s your favorite salad dressing for a beets salad. Thank you:)
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More Salads
I have plenty of salads to share, I always serve one with our meals. Feel free to check out more salad recipes from my blog:). Thank you!
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