I’m pretty into the whole vibe of the Momofuku collective of restaurants. Last time we were in New York, we had a beet salad at Noodle Bar that seriously got me so, so excited about root vegetables.
There was a heavy swoop of creme fraiche on the bottom of the plate, lovely cooked beets all diced on top, capers, rough chopped parsley and fresh horseradish. It was really simple, gorgeous to look at and delicious in an easy way. I say easy because you could just scoop it into your mouth and enjoy all of the flavours and textures making sense together. It was balanced and flavourful without too much effort. These ingredients were pretty much made for each other and I can’t believe it took this long for them to get together on a plate in front of me.
A little snag: I can’t eat creme fraiche every day (also a later edit: I’m vegan now), so I came up with this version that I can eat all day, every day with avocado and sweet little yukon gold potatoes. Beets tend to have a love affair with anything that’s creamy, tangy or rich so this all works out nicely. The horseradish and shallot vinaigrette punctuates everything with a strong, vinegary bite. It’s just a hearty, composed winter salad. I’m not craving lettuce much these days, but boiled root veggies and potatoes with brine-y stuff and chives on top? Yes please. And lots.
Beet, Potato & Avocado Salad with Horseradish
Ingredients
Vinaigrette
- 1 small shallot, fine dice
- ¼ cup white wine vinegar
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
- 1 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- ⅓ cup olive oil
Salad
- ½ lb mini Yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed
- 2 medium beets, scrubbed
- 1 medium ripe avocado
- 10 blades of chives, finely sliced
- juice of half a lemon
- 2 tablespoons capers
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
Notes
- Dice the shallot as small as you can so that the vinaigrette gets all in there and softens the pieces up.
Instructions
- Make the vinaigrette: Combine the minced shallot and vinegar in a small bowl. Add salt and pepper and whisk well. Add the horseradish and mustard and whisk to combine again. Drizzle the oil into the horseradish/vinegar/shallot mixture slowly as you whisk it vigorously until thoroughly combined. Alternatively, you can throw the whole works except the shallots into the blender and put it on high for a few seconds and add the shallots to the mix after. Set aside.
- Place the potatoes in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water by about an inch or two. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook until potatoes yield to a paring knife easily, but not so easily that they mush. About 12 minutes. Remove the potatoes with a slotted spoon and set aside. Place the beet roots in the boiling water and cook until you achieve the same knife-yielding tenderness of the potatoes. This should take longer, about 20 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and peel as soon as you are able, without burning your fingers of course. Cut potatoes and beets into small wedges and set aside in separate bowls.
- Peel and pit the avocado. Slice it into 1/4 inch thick pieces and lay onto your serving plate. Squeeze the lemon over top of the avocado slices and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle a bit of the dressing here too. Arrange the beets on top of the avocado. Drizzle some of the dressing on top. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and some of the chives. Arrange the potatoes on top of the beets and drizzle with more dressing, salt, pepper and the remaining chives. Scatter the capers on top. Serve the avocado salad.
Made this today and really enjoyed it. I had some sugar snap peas on hand which I blanched and added on top. A clean lunch that was both satisfying and tasty!
I made this today for Thanksgiving….it was amazing!!!! Thank you!
Great salad_ it was a perfect match for some of the veggies I got from ourr farm share this week. Thank you! all other recipes look so yummy I just had to comment and join in so as no it to miss out!
My boyfriend and I made this salad tonight; it is absolutely divine! The amazing combination of the sweet beets, the sour vinaigrette, salty capers on top of the hearty veggies makes this an amazing meal. So simple too! Will be coming back to this. Thank you for your inspiring recipes!
Saw this recipe the other day and immediately had to make it. Finally rounded up all the ingredients today, except I couldn’t find any proper prepared (or even raw) horseradish at my Aussie grocery store here (boooo) so I substituted a little wasabi, which turned out really well! And I also topped it off with some feta… Man, such a delicious salad. Thank you for posting! The dressing is so delicious I could almost drink it…
Discovered this recipe yesterday and have been day dreaming about it ever since. Had no choice. Made this tonight. Added a 7 min egg and roasted carrot ribbons on top. Amazing meal! Thanks for the great post.
Not only is this tasty, it is beautiful! Thanks for the recipe!
Ok a) I found your blog yesterday and went through the entire archive bookmarking probably every single recipe and
b) This seemed like a very random combination of ingredients but the photo looked so good I made this TODAY (I’m freaking out, I love your blog so much) and oh my god is this heaven in my mouth! I can’t believe these ingredients complement each other so well! I’m very happy :) Keep it up!
Laura – just came across this while traipsing through your archives … I think you might seriously need to change the name of this dish, and call it something like Ron Salad (after my dad). Beets, potatoes, and horseradish are all on his greatest-hits list ;) I can’t wait to make it this fall … another gorgeous recipe. Thanks :)
Yum! This looks scrumptious. My kind of salad.
I just found your blog through happyyolks and spent the next two hours reading through your archives. Let me just tell you that I am feeling so very inspired (and hungry)! Your photo’s are beautiful. I love your writing style and your recipe ideas are just brilliantly fresh. Thank you for starting my weekend off right. I can’t wait to hit the market!
Thank you for the lovely comment, Lindsay! Seriously so kind of you. Have a wonderful weekend :)
Ooh, I love that photo of the red beets in your hand! I want to learn to like beets, but they make my throat scratchy. This salad looks lovely, though.
Oh gosh that used to happen with me when I ate walnuts. Was deeply saddening. But it kind of went away over time! Hopefully beets are in your near future :)
I usually bookmark recipes in hopes of getting back to them some day but I went out and made this one immediately as my lunch for the week. The only variations I made were buying pre-peeled/steamed beets and substituting rice vinegar for white wine vinegar because i was all out. Thanks for sharing!
I could eat this salad any time…it looks really pretty and inviting!
oh, this is what winter salad dreams are made of! thank you.