Sautéed Beet Greens with Garlic and Olive Oil Recipe (2024)

Delicious, but actually you don't even need to blanch the greens first. After rinsing just place the greens with water still clinging to the leaves in the warmed olive oil and it will cook down nice and tender. If the pan is not overcrowded the extra water will evaporate away. I do use more olive oil than suggested (using flavorful olive oil makes a difference), which turns the leaves silky, and you don't even need the garlic, just some salt, it is that tasty.

I saved up greens for a week: beet, escarole, a motley assortment of others. Blanched for a minute, then cooled. Hours later I sauteed them with with garlic in olive oil and they tasted like a million bucks. Sometimes the simplest things are the best.

One of my all-time favorite discoveries is how good beets and greens are in pasta sauce. I sauté grated beets in olive oil with garlic and salt until tender, then add a bit more garlic and ribboned beet greens with a little wash water still clinging to them. When those are all cooked, I add jarred pasta sauce - I recommend a rich, thick one such as Amy's, if you can find it. You end up with a slightly sweeter, deeply flavorful fuchsia sauce on your spaghetti, and a nourishing one-dish meal.

30 years ago, grieving my mother's death and overwhelmed with a new baby, I was approached by a small older woman, dressed in black with an accent I couldn't place, at the market. Seeing me ripping greens off the beets, she said gently, as my mother might have: You're throwing the best part away. She told me how to make them this way, only cooked longer in the water. That night tears rolled down my face as the delicious greens melted in my mouth. I still think of her every time I make them.

I make these every time I buy a big bunch of beets. It's like getting a 'freebie'. My husband wouldn't eat them, but they make a great lunch for me. I've applied this treatment to many greens with great success.

in Sicily or Rome you might add golden raisins as well

At the end drizzle a little balsamic whisked with honey. Muahh! Perfect!

for years i have been cooking beets, their greens, and their stems separately and making an Italian contorno maybe with a scattering of chevre.
The stems cook up nicely during the garlic, oil and red pepper flakes phase of cooking, before you put the blanched greens back in. Cooking time for the greens could be a few minutes, or just a quick plunge into boiling water. Beet greens and their stems are much more delicate than that kale-thug, or even my other favorite leafy swiss chard.

Beets are actually 3 meals in one, not two. The bulbs (which can be boiled and eaten the usual way or grated raw and used in coleslaw), the stalks, which can be sauteed in garlic and oil (as described here), and the leaves, which can be separately sauteed in garlic and oil and served like spinach or chard. My garden has yielded a bumper crop of the red wonders this year.

I had a bunch of beets (and greens) from our CSA share. I also had garlic scapes, so I cut up about 4 of these and sautéed them in olive oil instead of the garlic cloves. Same garlicky flavour, with a little tangy kick, to boot. Mixed with some leftover pasta and voila! Dinner!

I meant to add, I don’t bother with blanching the kale and chard.

Delicious, but would benefit from some acidity, such as a squeeze of lemon or red wine vinegar.

Gosh, I just pick kale and chard leaves right out of my garden, wash and coarsely cut them into long wide shreds, then quickly saute in olive oil with a couple cloves of garlic. They come out tender and not too squishy. Utterly delicious and so incredibly healthy. Too bad the Times nutritional analysis doesn’t show vitamins and minerals. Kale and chard are tops in these categories!

Make it simple. We bought beets this week in line with our DASH diet. Almost threw the beet greens out until I heard my grandmother's voice say, 'shame.' Rinsed well. Sauteed with a hint of olive oil then I added just a bit of minced garlic. Splash of chicken stock, simmered and then a splash of red wine vinegar. Salt & pepper to taste. Doesn't need much. I now have a side for supper this week. Cooks down much more quickly than kale.

I saved a step ... Removed stems and added them to a veggie broth I was already making. Sauteed beet Greens in olive oil for a few minutes in a cast iron pan then added garlic, a bit more oil...the garlic started to stick so added a little water, maybe a 1/8 cup, and continued cooking until most the water was absorbed. They were good! And now having my veggie broth for a light snack.

Really good! I agree with person who recommended splash of lemon juice and I subbed chilli flakes as I didn’t have red pepper flakes.

Absolutely delicious! I squeezed a bit of fresh lemon juice on at the end.

One year after the message was posted, I am quite moved by Mary's review of this simple recipe which I plan to make for my parents shortly. Fortunately, they are still with me, both nearly 90 years of age. I believe that what Mary has shared is actually a message from her beloved mother, albeit in a different way. Eating a fine meal, often very simple and healthy as is the present one, is a way of connecting with our loved ones both alive and deceased.

This is a classic prep for greens which never fails to please. I made one change. Rather than waste the stems, I separated the stems from the leaves. I cut the stems into little pieces, like a quarter of an inch. After I blanched the leaves, I put the garlic, stems and pepper into the olive oil and let that cook a little bit. The, I added the leaves and stirred. The stems taste just as good as the leaves, and cooked add what I think is a nice texture to the leaves. My guests ate them up.

No need to blanch, can add lemon!

30 years ago, grieving my mother's death and overwhelmed with a new baby, I was approached by a small older woman, dressed in black with an accent I couldn't place, at the market. Seeing me ripping greens off the beets, she said gently, as my mother might have: You're throwing the best part away. She told me how to make them this way, only cooked longer in the water. That night tears rolled down my face as the delicious greens melted in my mouth. I still think of her every time I make them.

I skipped the blanching but did give the chopped stems a few minutes in the pan before adding the leaves. Also, I used a bit of anchovy paste instead of salt. Came out great!

Delicious. Tender. I paired it with two poached eggs. Wonderful. I'll never rip off the greens and leave in store again. 😂

I saved a step ... Removed stems and added them to a veggie broth I was already making. Sauteed beet Greens in olive oil for a few minutes in a cast iron pan then added garlic, a bit more oil...the garlic started to stick so added a little water, maybe a 1/8 cup, and continued cooking until most the water was absorbed. They were good! And now having my veggie broth for a light snack.

Gosh, I just pick kale and chard leaves right out of my garden, wash and coarsely cut them into long wide shreds, then quickly saute in olive oil with a couple cloves of garlic. They come out tender and not too squishy. Utterly delicious and so incredibly healthy. Too bad the Times nutritional analysis doesn’t show vitamins and minerals. Kale and chard are tops in these categories!

I meant to add, I don’t bother with blanching the kale and chard.

I had a bunch of beets (and greens) from our CSA share. I also had garlic scapes, so I cut up about 4 of these and sautéed them in olive oil instead of the garlic cloves. Same garlicky flavour, with a little tangy kick, to boot. Mixed with some leftover pasta and voila! Dinner!

Make it simple. We bought beets this week in line with our DASH diet. Almost threw the beet greens out until I heard my grandmother's voice say, 'shame.' Rinsed well. Sauteed with a hint of olive oil then I added just a bit of minced garlic. Splash of chicken stock, simmered and then a splash of red wine vinegar. Salt & pepper to taste. Doesn't need much. I now have a side for supper this week. Cooks down much more quickly than kale.

Excellent. Simple. Simply delicious.

Delicious, but would benefit from some acidity, such as a squeeze of lemon or red wine vinegar.