Even experienced housewives sometimes they wonder how to cook beets properly. It would seem that these mouth-watering root vegetables are so frequent guests on the table of a Russian person that we should know everything about them. But no, and sometimes not everything is clear with beets. When time is running out and guests are about to be on the doorstep, the questions of how long to cook beets until cooked and how to quickly cook beets without losing color and useful properties... So, let's put everything on the shelves.

How long to cook beets until tender

Medium root vegetables weighing 120-150 grams need to be cooked for 40 minutes to achieve a condition suitable for salads and vinaigrettes. If you are dealing with large specimens, cook them longer, from 50 minutes to an hour. Small fruits have a chance to cook in half an hour. But, as you know, every creation of nature is unique, so do not rely only on your watch for how long to cook beets. Check the readiness with a sharp knife, if it easily enters the fruit, then the beets are ready.

Cooking beets: the process

Actually, how to cook beets properly?

1. Without cutting off the tails, rinse the roots under cold water... For a more complete cleaning, use a brush or a hard sponge for dishes of the "Effect" type. It is recommended to leave the tails when boiling beets so as not to violate the integrity of the peel and preserve the color of the beets.
2. Boil the kettle. Place the beets in a saucepan and cover with boiling water. It is recommended to pour vegetables and meat with cold water only when cooking soups - while a large number of nutrients passes into water, forming a rich broth. If you are boiling beets, other vegetables, or meats for eating without broth, add hot water, then the beneficial substances will remain inside the product.
3. If you are thinking about how to boil beets and how to preserve the color of the beets, add a little vinegar while boiling. To be honest, boiling in the peel and hot water already protects the roots from discoloration. Therefore, in my culinary practice, the need to add vinegar has never arisen.
4. Cover the pot with a lid so you don't have to add water frequently while cooking. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and cook until tender, periodically adding hot water... Check readiness as described above.
5. Drain and pour cold water over the beets for a while. This will help to clean it easily afterwards. Taking the root vegetables out of the water, peel the thin peel with a knife and cut off the tails.
6. The peeled beets can be sliced \u200b\u200bimmediately to cool faster for your favorite salad.

How to quickly cook beets

Sometimes you really want or just need to reduce the cooking time of beets to a minimum. A simple trick will help you with this. Start boiling the beets as usual with hot water. 10 minutes after boiling, drain the water and fill the roots with cold water. Bring to a boil again, check the readiness and, if necessary, repeat the procedure. This way you can quickly boil the beets. Well, if there is very little time, do not despair, the taste of many salads will not suffer at all, and sometimes it can even improve if you add beets to them, cooked until half cooked.

And the last thing: before boiling beets, washing, peeling or cutting them, wear rubber gloves so as not to stain the skin of your hands in a beautiful purple... Good appetite!

We all love beets for their unique, no matter what similar taste and a lot of useful properties. Most of all, it is valued for the prevention of heart and vascular diseases, as well as anemia: beets are rich in substances such as iron, potassium and magnesium, which have a beneficial effect on the processes of hematopoiesis in the body.

Unfortunately, we are used to thinking that boiling beets is long and tedious: indeed, if you just put them in a saucepan with cold water, it will cook from 2 to 3 hours, which cannot repel all those who value their time from this product. ...

We decided to collect the most effective advicehow to cook whole beets as quickly as possible and at the same time preserve all their unique beneficial properties.

Temperature differences

This way is perfect suitable for thosewho decided to quickly boil whole beets in a saucepan.

If you urgently need boiled beets to prepare a dish, we advise you to act like a professional chef: leave it in boiling water for half an hour, drain the water and immediately put it under a stream of ice water.

Leave the beets to cool under water for 10-15 minutes: such a sharp temperature drop will bring them to readiness.

Boiling water

Bring the water to a boil and place the beets in a saucepan and simmer for about 40 minutes, keeping the heat high. Pour water with a margin, because from high temperature it will boil over very quickly.

Big fire

To quickly cook beets on the stove, you need a high heat and 20 minutes of free time.

It is very important to pour in more water: the roots should be covered with about ten centimeters of already boiling water. Otherwise, the water will boil away long before the beets have time to cook. Leave the pan uncovered and cook for 15–20 minutes, then place the roots under an ice-cold stream of water for 5 minutes. The beets are ready.

The only drawback of this express method is that nothing remains in the product. useful vitamin FROM.

Baking in the oven

Try to quickly cook the beets in the oven using a roasting bag. This method is as quick as boiling, and most importantly, just as (if not more) delicious: baked beets sweeter than boiled, which can be successfully used when preparing, for example, vinaigrette.

Put the washed unpeeled beets in a bag (you can also use foil) and place in the oven preheated to 180-200 degrees. Small young roots will be ready in half an hour, and large and ripe ones in 40-50 minutes.

In the microwave

If you want to quickly and deliciously cook beets in the microwave, you will need about 20 minutes.

Place the unpeeled, washed beets in a special container for microwave ovens or a plastic bag, not knotted but folded. Set the microwave to medium power and cook for 7-10 minutes. Check the doneness and place the beets for another 5-10 minutes if they are still half-baked.

In a multicooker

In a multicooker, you can also cook beets quickly and easily. The easiest and "fastest" option is to cook vegetables of approximately the same size in the whole peel.

On the "Steam" program (which can be easily replaced with the "Soup" or "Boiling" programs), the beets must be completely filled with water and cooked for 40 minutes. After the end of the program, check the readiness and, if necessary, add another 10 minutes.

Never cut off the tail or peel beets (unless you plan on stewing them for your dish, of course). It will be enough to thoroughly wash it with a sponge and send it to boil in this form: this way it will keep its beautiful saturated color.

By the way, about the color: add half a teaspoon of vinegar to the water after boiling or lemon juice - so it will become even brighter.

If you are boiling beets for vinaigrette or other salad and do not want them to color the rest of the vegetables, fill them properly with vegetable oil after chopping, and only then mix with other ingredients.

Beets are a healthy but difficult product to prepare. Often, beginners fail to properly cook the root vegetable so that it becomes soft, but retains its elastic structure and does not turn into gruel. How to choose delicious and sweet vegetable? How much to boil the workpiece so that it does not remain too hard and tough? What to add to boiling water to improve taste qualities beets? And how to speed up the preparation of the root vegetable, but retain all the useful properties?

Perfect taste and quality

Small and medium vegetables are used for salads, stews and first courses. If the beets are too large and round, then they are feed type. Such root vegetables are unsweetened and bland, take a long time to cook and contain fewer vitamins than table options.

The base for the vinaigrette is carefully examined. Specimens with rot, green spots, and pale skin are not worth buying. The right beet has a uniform, intense red or burgundy hue. Which varieties are tastier? Round or oblong and flattened? Second. They are juicier and sweeter.

It is easy to check the taste of the workpiece: remove the peel from one vegetable or cut it in half. If the color of the pulp is bright and rich, the root crop will turn out perfect salad... Pale beets are usually bland and grassy tasteless.

You cannot cook a workpiece with a damaged skin. But what about the control instance? Use to prepare freshly squeezed juice. Or cut into strips and put in a double boiler or multicooker. The vegetable will soften in 20-25 minutes. The blank can be added to diet salad or interrupt with a blender with vegetable oil and salt. It will turn out dietary snack, however, with minimum amount vitamin C, because ascorbic acid evaporates during steam processing.

Preparing vegetables

Beet tails, unlike tops, are not removed. They act as a cork that prevents the juice from flowing out. If you cut off the lower part of the root vegetable, it will lose most of it during cooking. useful microelementswill become pale and tasteless.

The beets are washed under the tap. The peel is gently sanded with a soft brush to remove the adhering soil, but not damage upper layer... Root vegetables are not peeled before cooking. The washed blanks are placed in a saucepan and brought to readiness.

Fast way

How to save an hour and a half and get soft juicy vegetablewhich peels off in seconds? Take advantage of the secrets professional chefs... You only need two ingredients: boiling water and 40-60 ml vegetable oil... A plus large saucepan and a bowl of ice.

For 2-3 medium root crops, take about 4-5 liters of water. If there is a lot of liquid, but there are few products, the moisture evaporates quickly and heats up more. First, oil is poured into the boiling base. Stir, and after 3-5 minutes put beets. They stop for half an hour, drain the liquid, and throw hot root vegetables into the ice.

Due to temperature changes, the pulp remains elastic, but not too tough. And the peel peels off and is easily removed even without a knife. The method has only one drawback. Ascorbic acid evaporates due to a sharp change in temperature. But in boiled beets iron, potassium, beta-carotene and calcium remain.

Option for vinaigrette

In order for the root crop to retain its rich color, it is placed not in hot, but in cold water. And add freshly squeezed lemon juice or table vinegar... The acid traps vitamins and dyes that are contained in beet pulp. For 3-5 liters of liquid, you will need 30-40 ml of the supplement. And to keep the vegetables sweetish, the cooking water is charged with 1-2 tbsp. l. Sahara.

The washed beets are placed in a saucepan and put on maximum heat. When the liquid base boils, 2 hours are timed. The container must be covered with a lid to raise the temperature of the water and speed up the preparation of root vegetables. A match is stuck into the workpiece. If it comes in easily, remove the pan. Beets can be poured over with cold water to release the skin from the pulp, but this is not required.

If you want vegetables to become sweet without sugar and honey, then you need to bake them. First, bring to semi-cooked in boiling water. Then remove and place on paper towels for 5-10 minutes to absorb moisture. Semi-raw root vegetables are transferred to foil or a baking sleeve, sent to the oven. Choose a temperature from 190 to 250 degrees. The workpiece will take from 30 to 40 minutes. Old beets take longer to cook, while young beets take longer.

1. To preserve vitamins, vegetables are brought to a boil over maximum heat and then switched to minimum temperature. The product languishes for 3 to 4 hours, always under a lid.
2. Reducing the cooking time can salt... Add 25–35 g of seasoning to boiling water, stir for 5 minutes. The spice removes oxygen from the water, which evaporates trace elements. Beets are placed in a salted boiling base. But so that it does not lose its sweetish taste, add sugar and a little vinegar.
3. The characteristic beetroot odor can be removed by black or rye bread... The crust is placed in a boiling base for 30-40 minutes until the roots are ready.
4. Boiled vegetables are stored only under the lid, no longer than 2 days. They quickly lose ascorbic acid and beneficial properties.
5. If the beets become dry and shriveled, they do not need to be thrown away. The workpiece is poured steep boiling waterand then placed in warm water to swell the product.
6. The broth remaining after boiling the root vegetable can not be poured out, but used as a laxative and diuretic. Just add a pinch of cinnamon or a few tablespoons of lemon juice to the drink.

Beets are cooked different ways: in a saucepan, oven, double boiler and even a microwave oven. The main thing is not to cut off the tails and peel during cooking, so that the workpiece does not lose vitamins and color. And dip the hot root crop in cold water or ice. Then the color of the product will be saturated, and the peel will easily separate from the pulp.

Video: how to cook beets quickly

1. Wash the beets and cut them in half, put them in a microwave oven, pour in a third of a glass of cold water.
2. Adjust the power to 800 W, cook small pieces for 5 minutes, large pieces for 7-8 minutes.
3. Check for readiness with a fork, if necessary, make it a little softer, return it to the microwave for another 1 minute.

In a pressure cooker - 10 minutes

Put the beets in the pressure cooker, add water and set to the "Cooking" mode. In a pressure cooker, beets are cooked in 10 minutes, and very large beets - in 15. After the end of cooking, it will take another 10 minutes for the pressure to drop and the pressure cooker can be opened without effort and safely.

Important information about boiling beets

- It is correct to put beets in boiling unsalted water - because beets are sweet. In addition, salt "tan" the vegetable when boiled, making it hard. Salt a better prepared dish - then the salty taste will be organic.

When cooking, it is necessary to ensure that the water completely covers the beets, and, if necessary, add boiling water, and after cooking it can be put in ice water for cooling.

If a bag is not used to boil beets, it is recommended to add a tablespoon of 9% vinegar, a tablespoon of lemon juice, or a teaspoon of sugar to the water to preserve the color.

To get rid of the strong beetroot smell, put a crust of black bread in the pan in which the beets are boiled.

Young beet leaves (tops) are edible: you need to cook the tops for 5 minutes after boiling the water. You need to use the tops in soups and vegetable side dishes.

- You should choose beets like this: Beets should be medium in size, the color of the vegetable should be dark red. If you can determine the thickness of the skin in the store, know that it should be thin.

Boiled beets can be keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, after the beets will begin to lose taste properties, will begin to dry out. Do not store boiled beets for more than 3 days.

Boiled beets, as a component, are part of many various dishes (, salads,), so many are interested in how to cook beets properly. If you don't cook it, it will be inconvenient to chew, if you digest it - some of the nutrients will collapse, the taste will deteriorate, and, again, chewing overcooked root vegetables is not very pleasant.

So that dishes that include boiled beets, turned out to be tasty and healthy, we choose fruits that are not too large and preferably not fodder varieties (that is, dark in color), best of all - young root crops. In principle, fodder varieties are quite edible, but they are not so tasty with them. In addition, the standards for the application of chemical fertilizers for forage crops are somewhat different from the standards used for feeding food crops. That is, fodder beets can contain large quantity unhelpful substances.

How to cook beets properly?

Consider ways to properly and quickly cook beets. Some advise to cook beets for up to 2 or even up to 3 hours. Of course, about the usefulness of the product after heat treatment during this amount of time, you can no longer think about it. How much to cook beets in time depends on the variety and on the size of the root crops. Professional chefs cook medium-sized beets for 20-40 minutes, without cutting off the tails, in the peel, then pour cold water and after 15 minutes the beets are ready, thanks to the temperature contrast of the procedures. All that remains is to peel it and chop or grate it. Don't let it seem to you that the beets will turn out to be too tough - our teeth are for chewing, in addition, more vitamins will be retained.

Preparation

We select fruits of approximately the same size and rinse thoroughly. Pour the beets in a saucepan with cold water, bring to a boil for high fire, then we turn down the fire. When cooking, the water should completely cover the fruit. It is best to cook over low to medium-low heat. This heat treatment method is optimal. If the roots are large, of course, they can be peeled and cut into pieces, but it is better to just cook a little longer, I think 40-60 minutes will be quite enough.

To improve the taste when boiling beets, you can add a little fennel and dill seeds (about 1 teaspoon per 2 liters of water). This technique not only improves the taste finished product, but also promotes the absorption of vitamins and other nutrients.

How much to cook peeled beets, again, depends on the variety and size of the fruit. Peeled small beets are cooked for 20-30 minutes, no more, this is quite enough, especially if the beets are young. So that during cooking the peeled beets do not lose their characteristic bright burgundy color, you can add 1-2 teaspoons of vinegar to 1 liter of water.

To determine how much to cook beets for salad, you need to decide whether you are boiling the whole fruit or pre-slicing it. In general, beets for salad are boiled for the same amount of time as for cooking other dishes.

How much to cook young beets?

To prepare young root vegetables, it is enough to boil them for 20 minutes. Then let us cool the beets in cold water minutes 10, clean, and you can use: cut, grate, punch with a blender.

Many people are interested in how to cook beets in a bag. Some people cook beets in cellophane and even plastic bags. It seems that this method is not very healthy, however, it is still permissible to use cellophane somehow, but polyethylene, when heated, will definitely add unhealthy substances to the beets. We put the beets in a bag, make a few holes with a toothpick, put them in a pot of boiling water and cook as usual. Better, however, to build a foil bag, place the beets in it and bake in the oven at an average temperature for 40-60 minutes. This method is a great alternative to cooking.

The calorie content of boiled beets is approximately 44 calories per 100 g of product.