Serves: Makes ~6
Cost: ~€0.90
Preparation and cooking time: ~10 minutes
Calories: ~66 calories per serving
Well folks, Christmas is almost upon us, and on behalf of my family, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a fantastic Christmas and New Year. As per tradition, we’ll be having not one, but two “Christmas days” in our home this year. We’ll be celebrating Swedish Christmas on the 24th, and then English Christmas on the 25th, along with a rather delectable array of food and drink for each day’s main meal. We’ll be having people over to celebrate with us on both days. It’s a lot of work, cooking for seven people one day, and then eight the next but it’s Christmas after all, and for me that’s all about togetherness, friendship, and mutual celebration.
The 25th is going to be a traditional English lunch – roast turkey, roast potatoes, roasted parsnips, carrots, and sprouts, yorkshire puddings, sausages wrapped in bacon, gravy, cranberry sauce, and all topped off with a Yule Log and mince pies with brandy butter. The 24th is going to be a traditional Swedish Julbord (Christmas table) – gravlax, pickled herring, meatballs, sausages, boiled eggs, hard and soft bread, boiled potatoes, Jansson’s Temptation, kavring (a type of bread which I’ll post a recipe for one day soon), beetroot salad (the subject of today’s post), rice porridge, and all rounded off with gingerbread cookies and cake.
Yum… for some!
Phew – that’s quite a list. Add to that having to get the timing right and things are looking a bit hair-raising, so thank goodness for simple things, like the beetroot salad which takes mere minutes to throw together. You can make it the night before. No, scratch that, you should make it the night before, as the colours will infuse over night giving a much more aesthetically pleasing dish. Beetroot haters of the world – feel free to skip this. If you’re not a fan then this dish isn’t going to change your mind but if you are then this makes a wonderfully light, colourful, healthy and fresh addition to the traditionally starchy, carb-laden meal.
I’m starting to think I’m a bit beetroot-obsessed, I post it so darn much! Anyway though, I’ll leave you for now and will be back after Christmas with the best roast beef! Seriously – it rocks. I posted a roast beef recipe before but screw that, it’s garbage compared to this. Have a happy and a healthy one y’all!
Christmas Beetroot Salad
Ingredients
- ~3 large peeled and boiled Beetroot
- 1 Onion
- 1 Granny Smith Apple
- ~250g thick Yoghurt, or regular yoghurt, filtered in a coffee filter for an hour to remove excess liquid
- ~3tbsps Mayonnaise
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Try to make this dish 24 hours in advance. Start off by dicing the beetroot into small cubes. Peel, core, and grate the apple, and then peel and finely chop the onion. Transfer to a large bowl and add in the yoghurt and mayonnaise.
- Mix the ingredients well and season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to a suitably sized bowl or container and store in the refrigerator. The next day, mix the contents of the bowl again to ensure even sauce and colour distribution and enjoy as a Christmas table accompaniment.
Merry Christmas to you and your family too, Charles! We have two Christmases too, Hungarian Christmas is always on Christmas Eve we usually have two turkey dinners in a row but our fixings are different and desserts are different. Perhaps one day I shall blog about them.
Your beet root salad sounds and looks delightful, I adore beet root. Your beet roots look like they are cooked, but you don’t mention it in the recipe. We call drained yogurt ‘yogurt cheese’ here!
Hi Eva, merry Christmas to you and JT. I hope you have a wonderful holiday period. Thanks for the reminder… the beetroot are indeed cooked. I’ve updated the recipe now.
Wow, you are one busy chef in the kitchen! I like quick, simple healthy recipes. I love beets and apples together in my salad. I make a similar beet apple salad but use a raspberry vinaigrette. Look forward to trying your recipe.
Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas!
Thanks Lisa – it was all rather overwhelming, but worth it to see everyone satisfied :). Hope you and your family had a wonderful and relaxing Christmas, and happy new year for a few days time!
Merry Christmas Charles to you and your wife and wee William. That’s an impressive list of dishes to be cooked within 48 hours. I wish you well! I do like the look of this beet salad although I’m not used to eating this type of fare at Christmas – but your English menu sounds perfect for me. Good luck with it all and I look forward to hearing how it all worked out xx
And to you too Charlie – I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas down under. I’d love to spend a Christmas one year in Australia… for me it would be such an incredibly strange experience having it in warm, or dare I say hot weather. Christmas day sandals and picnics – couldn’t do that here… brrr!
I have actually bought some beets the other day and I was wondering what to make with them 🙂
Wishing you, your family and loved one a blessed and happy Christmas and a wonderful new year
Thank you Sawsan – it makes a lovely salad, at any time of year really. I definitely recommend making it 24 hours in advance. The difference after it’s infused is incredible!
Merry Christmas!! Once again you’ve taken a beautiful veggie and dressed it up with brilliant colors. Beetroot is my favorite since it can take on so many flavors but the combination of apple and yogurt is deliciously sweet.Love it!!
Thank you Malli – it makes a nice light side dish to a table which is normally creaking under the strain of potatoes, meat and fish, but it can definitely be enjoyed any time really! 🙂
Merry Christmas, Charles. Good luck with the two dinners.
Thank you Sharyn – they all went off relatively hitch-free, and my guests left happy and well fed! 🙂 I hope you had a good Christmas yourself 🙂
Your Christmas dinners sound fantastic. Good luck with them both! Beet root salad looks gorgeous, love the colour.
Merry Christmas to you and your family, and a wonderful New Year!
Looking forward to your roast beef recipe.
Nazneen
Thank you Nazneen – merry Christmas to you too, and happy new year for a few days time 🙂
After all the Christmas baking I’ve been overwhelmed with this month, it’s nice to see a savoury dish pop up … even if beet root is not on my list of approved vegetables for consumption. 🙂 It certainly adds a colourful note to a festive holiday table.
Merry Christmas to you and your wife and … William on this first year of celebrating what will be a long tradition.
Hi A_ – I tried to keep baking to a minimum this year. I wanted to, for once, go a complete Christmas without gaining weight. I’m a tall guy so I carry extra weight well, but the fact is I am heavier than I should be, and I’m on a diet right now, since almost 7 weeks. I’m down almost 7 kilos now and really didn’t want to blow it all over Christmas, which meant the things I normally love to snack on – peanuts, cookies, chocolates – didn’t really get a look in this Christmas. I weighed myself after the two giant dinner parties and miraculously have actually managed to go down a little bit more. All that work cooking must have helped me burn off a fair few calories 😀
Charles, I wish you a great holidays, filled with joy and togetherness. I am sure that all your guests will have a wonderful time. And most important, may your holidays this season be truly happy! 🙂
Thank you Marina – I hope you and your family had a wonderful day. My guests seemed to be well-fed and happy, so I think that’s a sign of success 🙂
I hope you and your family have a lovely and memorable Christmas.
Thank you Karen – I hope you had a good day yourselves 🙂
Merry Christmas Charles to you and your little family! =) My celebrations are similar, 24th the Austrian way and 25 the french and goan way. I have never tried a beetroot salad, not sure it its my kind of dish. The color looks of course amazing if left infused.
Thanks Helene – it’s kind of sad, if I ever live in Sweden one day, the 25th is completely “unremarkable” for them. I’ll be feeling all Christmassy, and everyone else will be going back to work. Oh well 🙂
Merry Christmas, Charles! I admire you for being able to post such a wonderful recipe and entertain people at the same time (I’m not able to do it!). The list of the dishes you cite is really impressive and everything sounds so flavoursome!
The salad looks gorgeous and as someone who likes beetroots with a yogurt/sour cream/mayonnaise dressing I’m sure I would enjoy it a lot. I wish you and your whole family wonderful holidays and a Happy New Year!
PS As someone experimented in light mayonnaise, I strongly advise Lesieur: simply the best on the market (I buy it at Monoprix). Even if served alone it will be appreciated just like standard mayonnaise (no one will guess it’s the “diet” version!). Bénédicta is not bad either, but Lesieur beats all of them.
Hi Sissi – I hope you had a good Christmas too, and happy new year for a few days time. It was very hard work… I started preparing everything on the 21st, and was cooking and baking every night – 21st, 22nd, 23rd, until about 2 or 3am. Everyone was happy though, so that’s good. Thanks for the mayonnaise tips – I must admit though, I’m a mayonnaise addict, but I’m not choosy at all. I just like the white, saucy, gloopy texture. The flavour isn’t so important for me, and to be honest, the less flavour the better. I like Hellman’s mayonnaise, because it’s very plain. The French seem to put dijon mustard in every mayonnaise which I really dislike! I’ll give a try to Lesieur sometime though, for “scientific research purposes”!
Merry Christmas Charles to you and your family! I see you are spoiling them all with your holiday feast! My, I’m so impressed! Love the presentation of this salad – perfect for the holiday meal!
Thank you Linda – I hope you had a wonderful Christmas too! Happy new year for a few days time too 🙂
Hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas together, Charles! Cheers to the New Year! 🙂
Thank you Laura – I hope you had a wonderful day too. No doubt you did some of your fantastic baking for the day itself!
I’m just going to focus my thoughts on your Yorkshire pudding. 😉 I hope you had a fabulous Christmas this year! I thought of the three of you – baby’s first Christmas – this year. 🙂 I’m super impressed that you pull off these two large dinners two days in a row! I would be exhausted after just one of these. The timing thing would most certainly have me pulling my hair out too. That’s one of the things I find most challenging. I have to say, we had a great holiday too. While I didn’t do near as much cooking as you, I did spend all day Monday cooking. It was FABULOUS! I just loved it. As for the subject of today’s post…well, it certainly does look pretty and festive. 😉 I actually thought of you while at my grandma’s over the weekend. She had a large dish full of beets! Happy New Year Charles! Here’s to a fabulous year ahead of us!
A large dish full of beets? Haha – need I even bother guessing whether or not you enjoyed one or two of those? 😀
The dinners went very well – only two problems were I messed up the roast potatoes… I tried to roast too many potatoes, carrots and parsnips in one pan, and I ended up with a …. soggy kind of mess. They tasted ok though, so no biggie. I forgot to serve the mince pies too… the horror, but there was plenty of food, and people were happy! 🙂
This does look lovely and festive Charles. I’m tired out just looking at everything that you made for your two days of celebrating. Hopefully you got a bit of help in the kitchen? I’m makaing a roast beef tomorrow night, so I’ll need to check out your yorkshire pudding recipe — since I’ve never made it before. BTW, my turkey stock is now simmering away in the kitchen. Thanks for the inspiration.
Hi Barb – bit of help in the kitchen? My wife would normally be very happy to help, but what with having the baby this year, and coupled between my… hmm, what’s a nice way of saying this… er… “controlling tendencies”, any attempt by anyone to give me help in the kitchen usually results with me shooing them out yelling “you’re doing it all wrong!” :p
Do hope you enjoyed your Christmases – we did Spanish/English/Italian! Beautiful beetroot récipe, will give this a go soon 🙂
Thank you Chica – the dinners were a success in the end. The work was worth it, but not sure if it’s something I could do every year. Sooner or later I need to start letting other people run the show, at least for one of the days 🙂