How To Make The Easiest & Tastiest Beetroot Pesto Sauce!

This Beetroot pesto is a game changer! This thick, creamy & delicious pesto is an absolute savory delight. But don’t limit this sauce to only making pasta!

Beetroot is a wonderful root vegetable. I simply love cooking with beets for various reasons. I love the flavor, the color and the fact that they are super versatile. You will find many recipes here made with beets as the hero ingredient. In fact, I even did a round up post titled – 14 Unexpected Recipes with Beets this Fall where you can see how I have used them in various different recipes! Grilled Dabeli (Made With Potatoes & Beets) Pita Bread Pizza is my most recent recipe where I created a Pita bread pizza with dabeli stuffing which normally is made from potatoes but I have added beets in the mix too. The result is for all to see. My mom would always tell me that consuming beetroot is good for the purification of the blood. Later I discovered that they are also low in calories, high in valuable vitamins and minerals plus high in water content! It definitely makes sense to add beetroot to the daily diet!

Since I always have beetroot in my fridge, I keep thinking of new ways to use them. Long back, I had made Pink spaghetti where I had colored the pasta by cooking it in beets juice. So this time I wanted to try and make beetroot pesto. Pesto as we all know if from the Italian cuisine. I relate it to the Indian chutney because it is very similar. When I visit an Italian restaurant, my order is always either a pesto pasta or Alfredo pasta. I have prepared some varieties of pesto sauce in my kitchen and used them in many recipes. You can read about them here – Almond Picada Pesto Spaghetti & No-Cheese Added!, No-Cheese Sour Cream Pesto Pasta Bake, Doing Pesto the Right Way! 2 Bonus Recipes inside!, Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Pasta and Potato Roast With Beet Leaves Pesto. Making pesto sauce with beets this time was a rewarding experience. I simply loved the flavors and of course the deep pink color of the sauce.

You will find many recipes online on how to make Beets pesto. I did too and after comparing every other recipe, I just decided to go with my taste sensibility and thereby created my own version of beetroot pesto! For this recipe, you need to have beets. Duh! Now there are two ways to prep the beets. If you like a more rustic and earthy flavor, roast the beets in the oven. For that, preheat the oven to 425 degrees and line a baking tray with parchment paper. Wash the beets, peel the skin and slice them roughly. Drizzle some olive oil over the sliced beets and then toss to combine. Roast in the oven until the beets are fork tender, 10-15 minutes. Keep turning them at regular intervals to ensure they are evenly cooked. Roasted beets are ready to be used to make pesto. The other option is to use cooked or boiled beets which is what I did. I prefer this option though. 

For this, boil beetroot in salt + turmeric water in a pressure cooker for about 15 minutes. Then peel the skin and chop it roughly. You have boiled beets ready. Toss them into a blender. Add pine nuts, chopped garlic, dried or fresh parsley, rock salt, lemon juice and olive oil in it. Pulse it till it becomes a smooth paste. Ensure that there are no big chunks of beets in it. Transfer this pesto sauce to an airtight container. This sauce stays good for a week in the fridge. It has a nice earthy flavor to it. There are many different ways you can use beets pesto and just one of them is to make pasta! Spread it over toasted bread and enjoy a delicious snack, use it as a dip with some baked pita chips, use it as a pizza sauce, add it to your dosa/pancake batter to make pink pancakes, add it to salads or even add it over grilled corn to make pesto corn! The possibilities are limitless! 

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Beetroot Pesto Sauce

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Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Course: condiment, pasta, sauce, Side Dish

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: 2 cups

Author Priya Lakshminarayan

Equipment

• Blender

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized beetroots
• 1/3 cup pine nuts
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 1 jalapeno
• 3-4 tbsp parsley fresh or dried
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• rock salt as required

Instructions

• For this, boil beetroot in salt + (a teaspoon of) turmeric water in a pressure cooker for about 15 minutes.
• Then peel the skin and chop it roughly. You have boiled beets ready.
• Toss them into a blender.
• Add pine nuts, chopped garlic, jalapeno, dried or fresh parsley, rock salt, lemon juice and olive oil in it.
• Pulse it till it becomes a smooth paste. Ensure that there are no big chunks of beets in it.
• Transfer this pesto sauce to an airtight container. This sauce stays good for a week in the fridge.

Notes

If you like a more rustic and earthy flavor, roast the beets in the oven. For that, preheat the oven to 425 degrees and line a baking tray with parchment paper. Wash the beets, peel the skin and slice them roughly. Drizzle some olive oil over the sliced beets and then toss to combine. Roast in the oven until the beets are fork tender, 10-15 minutes. Keep turning them at regular intervals to ensure they are evenly cooked. Roasted beets are ready to be used to make pesto.

Add any kind of nuts while making the sauce. Almonds, walnuts, pine nuts, etc.

You can also add Parmesan cheese to it while blending. 

Use regular salt if rock salt is not available. 

Skip adding jalapeno if you like it bland. 

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Here are some super delicious pasta recipes that you can try at home – Almond Picada Pesto Spaghetti & No-Cheese Added!, No-Cheese Sour Cream Pesto Pasta Bake , Turmeric & Nuts Penne Pasta, Tomato Rotini Pasta Bake, Cilantro Basil Cream Sauce Pasta, Hummus & Sweet Potato Pasta, Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto Pasta, Garlic & Breadcrumbs Pasta, Habanero Basil Mango Pasta, Sriracha Peanuts Pasta, Broccoli & Garlic Pasta Salad and Roasted Red Pepper Sauce Pasta.