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Yellow Beets: Everything about Taste, Cultivation and Use

Less well known than its red counterpart, the yellow beet is gaining in popularity. Here you can find out how red and yellow beets differ, what is important when planting yellow beets and how to use them in the kitchen.

In addition to the beetroot, you will increasingly find yellow or white beets at the weekly market or in the vegetable displays of some supermarkets. Beetroot is often less conspicuous because of its less intense color – but it is a healthy, tasty and regional winter vegetable that you can use in many ways in the kitchen. We will explain what makes them different from beetroot, how you can plant and harvest them yourself and which dishes they are suitable for.

Yellow beetroot and beetroot: That’s the difference

Both the beetroot and the yellow beet originally came from the wild beet (Beta vulgaris). Today’s beet is a cultivated form of this plant. Other types of vegetables that go back to the wild beet are, for example, the sugar beet or Swiss chard.

From a botanical point of view, the yellow beet is just a variant of the beetroot – it is not a separate variety. The dye betaxanthin is responsible for their yellow colour, while the strong red of beetroot comes from the dye betanin.

Apart from the colour, yellow and beetroot differ only slightly. Their nutrient content is similar: Both types provide various B vitamins in particular, as well as iron and folic acid. Both betaxanthin and betanine belong to the betalain family, which have antioxidant effects.

Basically, the yellow beetroot is a little milder and sweeter in taste than the red variety. For people who are bothered by the slightly earthy taste of beetroot, the yellow version can therefore be a more pleasant alternative.

Planting yellow beets: you should pay attention to this

If you want to plant yellow beetroot in your own garden, you should choose a sunny and deep location: The beets develop so-called taproots that reach far into the ground. In addition, humus-rich soil is recommended for good growth. Apart from that, the yellow beet is relatively undemanding. Only very heavy soils (clay soils) can cause problems.

It is best to buy the seed for the yellow beet in organic quality – you can get tips and information on the advantages of organic seed in our overview. Between May and July you can sow the yellow beet seeds directly into the bed.

How to plant yellow beets:

Make seeding rows 4 inches apart and place the seeds 8 to 10 inches apart in the bed.
After sowing, cover them with soil about an inch or two deep.
After about two to three weeks, the seeds should start to germinate. If you then find that the plants are too close together, you may need to separate them – for the beets to grow well, they need enough space. In this case, loosen the soil around a plant with a toothpick, carefully remove it, and replant it in a suitable spot.
You should also water the plants regularly during growth: always keep the soil slightly moist, but avoid waterlogging. Apart from watering, the yellow beet does not need any additional care.
By the way: The yellow beet is well suited for mixed cultures. It’s best to choose plants that grow low so they don’t take away the sunlight from the yellow beets. You can plant kohlrabi, radishes or chives in the same bed, for example. Be careful not to plant yellow beets in a spot where you have previously grown goosefoot or foxtail plants. These include, for example, spinach, chard or sugar beets. With such a crop rotation, the yellow beets are susceptible to diseases and the soil loses nutrients, because these plants have very similar requirements.

Harvesting and storing yellow beets

You can harvest the yellow beets from September right into the winter months. It usually takes about three months between sowing and harvesting. You should get the yellow beetroot out of the ground before the onset of frost at the latest – they can cope with temperatures down to zero degrees Celsius, but they don’t tolerate sub-zero temperatures.

How to harvest yellow beets:

To harvest, use a small shovel or special digging fork to loosen the soil around the beets.
Then you can easily pull them out.
When there is plenty of excess soil on the beets, roughly pat them off. If you intend to store your harvest, you should leave a little soil on it – this increases its shelf life. While you can gently twist off the root of the beetroot about an inch below the beet, you should not remove the leaves.
A sand-filled box in the basement or a storage pit (earth heap) in the garden is best suited for storing yellow beets. With cool temperatures of around zero to one degree Celsius, the beets last all winter. If you don’t have a basement or a storage pit, you can also preserve the yellow beets by boiling them down. You can do this in the same way as with beetroot.

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Food

Cooking Beets in the Oven: So Delicious and Healthy

Beetroot is particularly tasty when you prepare it in the oven. We present a method how you can easily cook beets in the oven.

You can not only boil, roast or eat beetroot raw, you can also cook it in the oven. This cooking method softens the tuber’s earthy flavor and brings out its natural sweetness. Beetroot should also convince those who were previously skeptical about its intense aroma.

Beetroot is not only a versatile vegetable, but also a source of valuable micronutrients such as phytochemicals, iron, vitamin C and B vitamins. Just 200 grams cover around 50 percent of your daily folic acid requirement.

You can get the healthy tuber either fresh from the field or from storage almost all year round. The main harvest season lasts from October to March. Fresh beetroot can therefore provide you with important nutrients, especially in the winter months. If possible, make sure that you buy organic beetroot. In this way you support agriculture that does not use chemical-synthetic pesticides and thus protects the soil and the environment.

We’ll show you a way to cook beets into a delicious dish in the oven. This oven-roasted vegetable tastes great as a side dish or as part of delicious and nutritious Buddha bowls.

Cooking beetroot in the oven: As an aromatic oven vegetable

Idea: If you end up wanting to make a soup, puree or spread from the beetroot, you can save time and energy by first cutting the beetroot into very small pieces and then cooking them in the oven.

Ingredients:

500 g small beetroot
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive or frying oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon molasses or other liquid sweetener
Salt and pepper to taste
3 sprigs of rosemary

Directions:

Wash and scrub the beets thoroughly and cut off the core. Then halve the tubers. You don’t have to peel them. Peel the garlic and press the cloves with the flat side of a knife until they pop open slightly.
Place the beets and garlic in a casserole dish. Mix the oil with the vinegar, liquid sweetener, salt and pepper. Pour the marinade over the vegetables and mix well. Place the rosemary sprigs on the beets.
Roast the beets in the oven at 200°C (top/bottom heat) for about 40 to 60 minutes until the tubers are soft. Turn the vegetables every 20 minutes.

Here’s how to use oven-cooked beets

You can process beetroot from the oven in many ways:

You can also cut the beetroot into thin slices and use them to cover a tarte flambée.
Instead of raw beetroot, you can also use oven-cooked tubers for a beetroot carpaccio.
If you fancy a special cake, you can use the beetroot in a chocolate cake. You won’t be able to taste the tuber, but it ensures that the cake is nice and moist.
The spiced beetroot tastes good in Buddha bowls, a millet bowl, in salads, for example a pearl barley salad, or together with a dip.

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Food

19 Amazing Facts About Beets

Beets are a genus of annual, biennial and perennial herbaceous plants of the Amaranth family. Do you know a lot about Beets?

  1. The most famous representatives are: common beets, fodder beets, sugar beets. All of them in everyday life have a common name – beets.
  2. Found on all continents except Antarctica.
  3. All modern beet species come from the wild beet growing to this day in Iran, on the shores of the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Sea, as well as in India and China.
  4. For the first time in the daily diet, beets began to be introduced in the Middle East and in the east of the Mediterranean – although at that time only the leaves were eaten, and the roots were used for medicinal purposes.
  5. Assyrian texts describe the cultivation of beets in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which is one of the seven wonders of the world.
  6. In ancient Persia, beets were considered a symbol of quarrels and strife.
  7. During the Roman era, it was used as an aphrodisiac.
  8. Beetroot was held in such high esteem by the Romans that it was collected as a tribute from the subordinates of the Germans. At that time, the root crop was long and thin like a carrot.
  9. In ancient times, the medicinal properties of beet root were more important than its taste, and the vegetable was used to treat a variety of ailments, including constipation, fever, wounds, and some skin problems.
  10. The ancestors used beets instead of blush.
  11. The rounded shape of the root crop known to us today appeared only in the 16th century.
  12. In the XVI – XVII centuries. it was differentiated into dining and fodder forms. In terms of chemical composition, fodder beets differ little from other types of beets, but their roots contain a large amount of fiber and fiber.
  13. From the hybrid forms of fodder beets, sugar beets emerged in the 18th century. It appeared as a result of intensive work of breeders, which began in 1747, when Andreas Marggraf found out that sugar, which was previously obtained from sugar cane, is also contained in beets. The first to appreciate and practically use the Discovery of Marggraf was only his student Franz Karl Achard, who devoted his life to the problem of producing beet sugar and in 1801 equipped a factory in Lower Silesia where sugar was produced from beets. At that, the sugar content in fodder beets was 1.3%, while in the currently existing varieties it exceeds 20%. Sugar beet is currently the second largest source of sugar after sugar cane.
  14. From the end of the XIX and in the XX centuries. the culture has spread to all continents. According to popular legends, the widespread consumption of beets by the peoples of the Balkans and Eastern Europe prevented the development of medieval plague epidemics in the east of the European continent.
  15. To date, more than 70 varieties and hybrids of beets have been zoned, differing in appearance, yield, and early maturity.
  16. The heaviest beet in the world was grown in Somerset in 2001 and weighed 23.4 kg.
  17. Beets perfectly cleanse the body of toxins and toxins.
  18. In Britain and Ireland, halloween lanterns in the form of a glowing head from the inside were traditionally made from beets, turnips or rutabagas. Lantern pumpkins, more familiar to us now, began to be used by American immigrants in the 19th century.
  19. In many cultures, there is a belief that if a man and a woman eat the same beets, they will love each other.
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