Tailgate Chic Super Bowl Menu: Roast & Beet 'Em Salad

You can make the Quickie Spiced Nuts and Roasted Beets a couple of days in advance and just put everything together the day of your party. In fact, unless you want show off tie-dye hands, you’ll definitely want to roast the beets a day or two ahead of time because they will stain your hands pink.

Roast & Beet 'Em Salad

Makes one large salad – 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients:

For the Roasted beets:
6 medium to large beets, use a mix of gold and red for color
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Salt

For the Quickie Spiced Pecan Pieces
¼  cup pecan pieces
½ tsp of sugar
½ tsp salt
Hefty pinch of each:
black pepper
ground clove
cinnamon
and a small pinch of chili pepper
Canola oil spray

For the Fig Vinaigrette
1 oz fig vinegar
1 oz apple cider vinegar
6 oz olive oil
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 tsp sugar
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

For the Salad:
½ cup good quality feta or ricotta salata, cubed or crumbled
10 oz mixed spinach and lettuce

Directions:

Roasted Beets

•    Pre-heat oven to 400°F.
•    Clean beets thoroughly and chop off the stems.
•    Place beets in a baking dish and toss with olive oil to coat.
•    Cover the pan with aluminum foil and place in the oven.
•    Every 20 min. rotate the beets in the pan.  Add a splash of lemon juice to help keep them moist.
•    Allow the beets to roast until tender—they’re done when a knife inserted into the center goes in smoothly, without any resistance. Depending on the size of the beets, it should take between 60 to 90 minutes total.
•    Remove the beets from oven. When they’re cool enough to handle peel the skins off using a pairing knife.
•    Slice the beets into wedges and sprinkle lightly with salt. Set aside.


Quickie Spiced Pecan Pieces

•    Heat a pan over medium heat.
•    Once the pan is hot, add the pecan pieces and allow them to toast until they’re starting to get fragrant, stirring often.  This will only take a minute or two.
•    Remove the pan from the heat. Spray the nuts with canola oil (or toss with a very small drizzle of oil) and then sprinkle on the sugar, salt, and all of the spices.
•    Return the pan to the stove and allow the nuts to continue to toast over low heat for another 30 seconds to a minute—just until the spices are beginning to get fragrant as well.  Taste and adjust the salt and spices.
•    Transfer the nuts a separate dish and set aside.


Fig Vinaigrette

•    Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl and whisk until the oil and vinegar combine. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
•    Alternatively, place everything in a container you can seal tightly, and shake it up until it all comes together.


To put it all together:

•    Toss the spinach and lettuce with a sparing amount of vinaigrette. (If you’re serving the salad on a buffet, keep the dressing on the side.)
•    Arrange the beet wedges on the salad.
•    Sprinkle on the spiced pecans and feta cheese cubes.


Bonus tip– The applewood smoked bacon bits for the slider bar work really well on this salad as well.  Just leave them on the side to keep the salad vegetarian friendly.





Check out the rest of the Super Bowl recipes in this series:
End Zone Slider Bar
Mini Lobster Rolls
Sesame Barbeque Ribs 

And definitely don't miss Hilary Pereira's decorating feature.



Thanks & Credits: 
A a big thanks to Inside the C.
An extra special thanks to Hilary Pereira and her team, Kat and Rafael. 
All of the beautiful photographs for these posts were taken by Daniel Movitz.
Laura Sarvia Bott, of Bott and Co., created all of the fantastic designs for the signage and menus.and and Mafe Martinez and her team, Ileana and Ruth, at Sites by Mufin created the new design for my site