Recipe and Photos by Ada Broussard

Golden, red, or the willy-wonka chioaga, beets are truly a fall and spring crop. If you’ve been a CSA member for a while, you know that we had some major beet crop failure this past fall, and so these spring beets are *hopefully* an exciting addition to your box. If you’ve never blended up your beets to make a delicious dip, perfect for salty chips or a piece of thick crusty bread, go ahead and do that. Recipe below. If I’m roasting just 1 or 2 beets, I try to find a moment when my oven is on anyway, then wrap these up in foil and throw in the back corners until they are soft. My mind was blown when I found out how many restaurants batch-roast beets: Fill up a pyrex or oven safe dish with a bit of water (an inch or so), plop your scrubbed beets in there, then tightly wrap the top with foil. If I’m cooking a bunch (ha!) of beets, I use this method, which yields the most tender, juicy, and delicious beets. The skin sluffs off easily with your fingers, and then you can use said fingers or a bit of freshly roasted beet to blush your cheeks or tint your lips. Who cares that you’re not going anywhere? Treat the greens like the sexy, silky, spinach substitute that they are and cook gently with a bit of garlic and olive oil. 

Quarter peeled and roasted beets and put them in a bowl. (They should be very soft. If the skin doesn't come off very easily, they need to go longer.) Add about an equal volume of canned (drained) chickpeas. Canned white beans would work great here, too! I think I used about 6-9 roasted beets.

Add about 3-5 cloves of garlic, more if you have more beets. Add a very generous glug of olive oil. A quarter cup? Add about the same amount of tahini. Maybe a little less.

Add as many chopped "tender" herbs as you feel comfortable with. I used parsley and dill. Honestly, you can go pretty heavy on the herbs. They will help brighten the earthy flavor of the beets.

Add a lot of acid: lemon or lime juice if you have it, and maybe some red wine vinegar if you don't. I used lime juice because it's what I had. (Zest, too, if you're feeling fancy!)

Salt!

Blend it up! I used an immersion blender. Taste, and add more salt if it's bland, acid if it's too early, and olive oil if it's too chunky. I needed to add more of all three after my first blend. Serve with tortilla chips, pita chips, or maybe even slathered on a wrap.

I've also made versions of this dip using plain yogurt instead of tahini. It's a creamier dip, and is very delicious! Sub roasted carrots for the beets in either the tahini or yogurt version! Also, if I had a hot pepper (jalapeno or serrano) I would have added some of that to the beet hummus - the spice will help balance the earthiness.