How To Cook Beets Perfectly

Wondering how long to cook beets? Learn to make perfect beets in your Instant pot or on the stovetop. Cook times for pressure cooking, steaming, boiling, and many beet recipes.

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Beets are nutrition and flavor bombs, especially when cooked correctly. One of the nicest things about beets is that they are like me, #ruthlesslyefficient.

Every part of the vegetable is edible–from the beetroot to the beet stems to the beet greens. All you need is to know how to cook the beets. I always look for beets with greens since the leaves can be very tasty.

Beets make a great appetizer , side dish , or even main course . They’re delicious, nutritious, and quite easy to cook.

How To Choose Beets

Beets are a taproot, so they are generally fairly forgiving when you cook them. That being said, there are a few things to look for when choosing beets that will make your dish even more enjoyable.

Choose beets that are a consistent size so they cook evenly
Make sure they are firm and not shriveled
Small, thin beets are generally more tender
Beets with the greens attached are generally fresher. If they have the greens attached, they should be firm, small, and green.

How To Cook Beets

I am going to show you a few different ways to cook beets. For each method of cooking beets, I will tell you the advantages and any disadvantages, so you can decide what’s best for you.

How To Remove Beet Stains

Cooking with beets can be intimidating if you’re concerned about dealing with stains on your countertops, your dish towels, or cutting boards. And let’s not even get started about the stains beets can leave on your hands.

My recommendation for cooking with beets is to work quickly and to clean as you go. If you’re quick to rinse your knives, cutting boards, and countertops off as you use them, it prevents the deep red pigments from settling into the pores in these surfaces.

As far as your hands go, if you’re concerned about staining your skin I would recommend wearing kitchen safe plastic or latex gloves while doing your food prep.

If you’ve done all of these things and you still notice some staining you have a few options to help eliminate the red pigment. Here are some natural and not-so-natural options to get things squeaky clean again:

lemon juice
baking soda
Magic Eraser
Dawn Platinum Powerwash

How To Make Instant Pot Beets

Pressure cooker beets are fast, and not messy. All of the red stains are contained inside the liner, making clean up easy.

Additionally, there’s little to no guesswork on timing, nor needing to check for doneness. Unless your beets are ginormous they will cook in the time specified.

Place 1.5 cups of water into your Instant Pot .
Cut the beets in half and place on a steamer basket or on a trivet.
Close the lid and cook on high pressure for 12 minutes. When cook time is complete, let pot release pressure naturally for 10 minutes , and then release all remaining pressure.
Allow the cooked beets to cool before trying to peel, but once they’re cool the peel will just slide off.

How To Steam Beets On TheStovetop

Steaming may preserve more nutrients than boiling when cooking beets . When you boil beets on the stovetop, especially if you slice them in half for faster cooking, a lot of the nutrients–and the color–will leach into the water.

I find the cooking pot a lot easier to clean when I steam beets rather than boiling beets. They sometimes take a little longer to cook than do boiled beets though.

Place two cups of water in a large pan.
Place a silicone steamer basket or steamer rack into the pan. Ensure the water is below the basket.
Scrub the beets well. Cut the beets in half for faster steaming, and place them on the rack.
Partially cover the pot with a lid, leaving it slightly off the pot to allow steam to escape.
Steam for about 30 minutes until the beets are tender. Whole beets will take closer to 45-50 minutes to cook fully.
Use a paper towel to peel them after cooling.

How To Boil Beets On TheStovetop

Wondering how long to boil beets ? Boiled beats cook faster than steamed beets. Fair warning though, you will likely have more of a red, stained cooking liquid to deal with.

To reduce the red liquid mess, try leaving the beets intact, including much of their tails.

Scrub the beets and place them into a saucepan.
Cover with water , allowing the water to cover the beets fully, ensuring an additional 2 inches of water above the beets.
Partially cover with a lid, leaving it slightly off the pot to allow steam to escape.
Boil for about 20-25 minutes until the beets are tender. Whole beets will take closer to 34-45 minutes to cook fully.
Drain the water and allow the beets to cool.
Use a paper towel to peel them after cooling.

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What To Do With Beet Greens

I had mentioned earlier that every part of a beet is edible (apart from the little tail). So what can you do with beet greens?

Use them just as you would any other greens! Wash them well, and then use them in a recipe that calls for spinach , swiss chard, or kale .

Can You Eat Raw Beets?

Yes, you most certainly can. Raw beets taste the best when they’re prepared like they are in my beet salad recipes :

Wash and peel them well.
Grate them so you have smaller pieces of beets.
Tenderize them with a little acid such as lemon or lime juice.

They are very crunchy when eaten this way–crunchy in a good way–and are also less likely to have the more earthy taste that cooked beets can have.

Can You Freeze Beets?

Yes, you can freeze beets and if you do it the the correct way, they taste just as delicious as they did when they were cooked.

To successfully freeze beets, you will place them in a single layer on a sheet pan and place in the freezer. When they are frozen through, take the sheet pan out and place the beets into a freezer-safe bag. These will stay good in your freezer for up to 8 months.

Beet Recipes

Air Fryer Roasted Beets
Raw Beet Salad
Instant Pot Beet Salad
Instant Pot Borscht
Beet Salad Recipe With Lentils

So if you’ve been wondering how to cook beets , how to prepare beets , or the advantages of steamed vs. boiled beets, or even how to use your Instant Pot for beets, I hope this has been helpful. Pin this post and share it with your friends!