Roasted Beetroot and Orange salad

Most beautiful time of the year is here! Keeping up with the Christmas spirit, today I am sharing recipe of this vibrant beetroot salad which bursts with flavour. Almost melt in your mouth beets are teamed with fresh oranges,pickled onion, mint leaves, feta cheese and topped with a delicious simple dressing. This salad is a total winner!

This salad is inspired by this delicious beetroot salad I recently had in Dubai. Out of the many salads that I had there, this was my absolute favourite. Like always, I obviously had to improvise and add feta cheese. Its amazing how feta just makes almost every dish more delicious. It goes so well with the sweet beetroots and perfectly balances the entire dish with its tang.

You can also throw in greens like baby spinach, lettuce and nuts for and seeds for texture.

Apart from having a beautiful pink colour, beetroot has numerous health benefits too. Beetroot is a rich source of antioxidant, lowers blood pressure and its almost fat free. Beetroot is also high in fibre,iron and potassium. Beetroot is usually perceived as a boring vegetable but it can be used in so many different ways. Try it in soups, salads, cake,stews for not only its gorgeous colour but also sweet earthy taste.

Ingredients

3 beetroots
segments of two oranges
1 sliced onion (soaked in lemon juice and little sugar)
1/2 cup pomegranate kernels
few mint leaves
Crumbs of feta cheese

Dressing
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp honey
1 tsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp orange juice
salt to taste
black pepper

Method

Place beetroots in aluminium foil and drizzle some olive oil, salt and black pepper. Fold it up and bake in oven at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes or until tender.

Once done, peel off the skin and cut in small dices.

To serve, add diced beets on a plate and top with pickled onion, pomegranate, orange segments, mint leaves and feta cheese.

For dressing, whisk together olive oil, honey, lemon juice, orange juice, salt and pepper.

Pour 2-3 tsp of dressing over the salad and serve.