Sautéed Beets With Pasta, Sage and Brown Butter

By Mark Bittman

Sautéed Beets With Pasta, Sage and Brown Butter
Craig Lee for The New York Times
Total Time
30 minutes
Rating
5(493)
Comments
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Give a cook a beet, and he’ll probably do one of two things with it: Reject it for fear of turning the kitchen into a juicy red crime scene, or roast it and serve it with goat cheese. I can take this marriage or leave it, but even if you love it, you must admit that it only scratches the surface of what beets have to offer. More than half the time that I prepare beets, I begin by shredding them in a food processor. After that, you can serve them raw with a simple dressing, or you can stir-fry them in a skillet to brown them slightly, which brings out their sweetness like nothing else. This recipe employs the latter technique (with the addition of sage) then calls for tossing the beets with pasta. A finishing of grated Parmesan is a salty counterpoint to the caramelized sweetness of the beets.

Featured in: Do Not Fear a Beet Without Goat Cheese

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Ingredients

  • 4tablespoons butter
  • 1½pounds beets, peeled and grated
  • 20fresh sage leaves
  • Cooked pasta
Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Put butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Heat butter until it turns nutty brown, then add the beets and sage leaves.

  2. Step 2

    Cook, stirring occasionally, until the beets are tender and lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add some cooked pasta and toss. Garnish with Parmesan.

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Ratings

5 out of 5
493 user ratings
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Comments

Michele Barron-Lunde

I added toasted pecans as a garnish. Yum!

Scott

Very good. Used fresh rosemary instead of sage, and it worked well.

Pat Odell

LIked this recipe, but think the pecans would add a much need addition of taste and texture.

Nick

Not sure what the hype is for this one…? Used fresh farm share beets, our own sage, and it was… a pile of shredded beets mixed with pasta. It didn’t make any sense, and was just sort of fine. Great choice if you have a lot of beets lying around I suppose.

Stacy

Nice to try a new way to eat beets - on pasta! We really enjoyed it on lentil pasta, which made us wonder about serving this over lentils as an alternative.

Justine

I am not here to change the recipe - promise! - it was an amazing use of my four golden beets that I purchased at the Helena, Montana farmers market today. But I didn’t have sage, so I used olive oil to sauté up some garlic, then the grated beets, unpeeled, lots of salt and pepper and then decided it needed some plain tomato sauce to highlight the farmers market basil that I literally dumped in. First few bites I wasn’t sure…. Then I got seconds. Used rigatoni as the pasta and also added some cayenne. Thanks for a super awesome idea and recipe. #keeper

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