You may ask what other ways are there to use beet shreds? Well, keep reading, and let’s explore this special root vegetable. Your click on this post, makes me guess you must either like beets, or you’re about to try it out or you are a juicer like me. well, whichever you are, you must find this interesting.
Have you ever been faced with the dilemma of disposing of your veggies’ roughages after juicing? I can tell you that it isn’t something pleasant to behold when you dump those beautiful fibres and roughages in the bin unless you are a gardener who likes to put them together to make a compost.
My love for smoothies and juicing began with the covid 19 lockdown. I had so much time on my hands that I decided to research various ways to incorporate a healthier lifestyle with the consumption of more fruits and veggies in my daily life.
After reading up on the health benefits of beets, its redness was scary at first till I learned to love its earthy taste and the sweetness of its juice. These 5 ways are my favourite ways to use these beet shreds as
1. Beet Shreds for Rice
I must tell you that I am frugal in the kitchen as I never like to waste anything when cooking. And so I discovered this special way to make rice without tomatoes that will confuse anyone. Of course, beets are red in colour and so are the shreds. But when you fry the beet shreds with rice and steam it, the redness turns pale when it cooks and you have a pot of delicious rice.
The best thing is that it tastes nothing like beets, it saves you from using tomatoes especially if you do not have it readily available when cooking, it incorporates the nutrients and fibre of the beets and saves the shreds from being a waste.
Beetroot is a vegetable that is loved by some and not so much by others. I remember my first taste of beets; it was not pleasant. I just didn’t like it because it tasted like earth… yuck. My mom read out the health benefits of beetroot and we decided to go for it. She bought them, we cooked them and then ate. It was not pleasant at all. Another day, she gleefully told me that beets can be eaten raw without cooking. I just thought to myself, not again. To my surprise, it tasted better raw than cooked. You have to believe me. It was super crunchy and delicious but it stained the hands and kitchen counter that we had to scrub and scrub till it wiped off. Another very significant was the after-effect of beets, get ready for it. If you pee or poop after eating this crunchy vegetable, be prepared to have your pee pink in colour or poop pink too. It is so strong that I didn’t realise it could do that and I was frightened to death. My mom also calmed me down telling me it was part of the cleansing process and that it was normal. After the 1st consumption of this healthy vegetable, I believe your body will readjust and become accustomed to it. It amazed me how no waste from my system was ever pink after the first time.
Also, we started blending this wonderful veggie as well as juicing it and I can tell you that you blood count will spike when you start taking this vegetable. Its health benefits include treatment of anaemia, improving your heart health, anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties as well as having a beautiful glowing skin. If you read a blog post by LyoFood, https://lyofood.com/blogs/lyofood-blog/amazing-vegetables-2-beetroot, you will really see all the interesting health benefits of this amazing vegetables that are too numerous to mention.
After juicing your vegetable, what do you do with the fibre? This is one thing people discard that I cannot stand. I believe the fibres of veggies are there for a purpose and throwing them in the bin is not ideal. In this post, I will share with us one of the many ways to use leftover beetroot fibre for a healthy delicious pot of rice.
In Nigeria, we have this delicious jollof recipe where we use tomatoes, red bell peppers, onions and other ingredients to make this meal. In this post, I will show us how to use none of these to make jollof rice which will still turn out super delicious and healthy too. Who says you cannot eat your cake and still have it? We will use the leftover beet fibre to make rice and to accompany this meal, we will use purple cabbage to make a ginger chicken sauce and I guess you’re salivating already.
Grab your things guys and let’s make this mouthwatering meal.
Ingredients
Beetroot Juice
- 4 large beetroots
- Juicing machine or juicer
Beetroot Fibre Rice
- 2 cups beet fibre
- 2 cups Thai Jasmine Rice
- 1 small Onion
- 5 cloves of Garlic
- Pinch of Salt or Seasoning cube
- Dash of Pepper
- Dash of Extra virgin Olive oil
- 3 cups water
Ginger Chicken Sauce
- 500g chicken breast
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 1 medium sized onion
- Pinch of salt / seasoning cube
- Spices
- Pepper to your taste
- 1 medium sized purple cabbage
Method
First wash your beets, peel them and cut them into cubes. Afterwards, drop them into your juicer and extract the juice from the beets. Store your beet juice in a container and put the beet shreds on a plate while you get the other ingredients ready for the other dishes.
In your hot pot, add some olive oil, garlic and onions. Fry until golden then add your rice. Fry all together and when you start hearing the sizzling sound, add your beet fibre. Fry all together before then adding your spices, salt or seasoning cube, pepper. After a few minutes, add your water and allow water to cook the rice thoroughly. If you’re cooking this rice, you will see that the rice will be very red in colour but not to worry. The colour will turn orange when heat hits it and it will be just like Nigerian jollof rice.
As this is cooking also, you can start making your ginger cabbage chicken sauce. Begin by, add some olive oil in your wok. Then add some garlic and onions to the wok. Fry everything together before then adding your chicken. Ginger, spices, salt and pepper. When the chicken has cooked and does not look raw, the add your purple cabbage. If you also have left over beet fibre, you can also add it to the wok for redness.
This meal is so yummy, healthy and packed full of nutrients. On my YouTube channel, you can find the entire recipe with the step to step method on how to cook these delicious meals.
I hope you try and give me feedback.
Stay safe and I send my love to you.
xoxo
Oby.
You can find the recipe here.
2. Reddy Beet Stir Fry
As an accompaniment to the rice, I also came up with this stir fry. This is an award winner I must tell you. Incorporating mainly red and purple vegetables which nourish the bodies with the adequate phytonutrients, I put together a sumptuous meal which the kids and I loved! Imagine if the kids loved it, then it was an amazing dish 🙂
To make this meal, you will need your olive oil or coconut oil, beet shreds, red cabbage, ginger, sliced beef, onions, garlic, salt and pepper. The video can be found on my youtube channel.
3. Beet Red Velvet Cake
Oh yeah, your ears are tickling, right? Why use red food coloring when nature gave you a stronger color to use both with the juice and the fibre. To do this, substitute part of your flour with the beet shreds to make it extra moist and also use part of the beet juice to give it the redness in the red velvet cake.
4. Air Fryer Beet Spice
This is a great way to add spice in your meals. Why toss those fibres away when you can use to air fryer to toast them with some ginger and garlic. When dried, pulse them in a dry blender until they merge into a fine powder. Finally, add some salt or seasoning cube and store in a cool dry container. Use them when cooking especially to give your jollof rice that extra kick in the taste.
5. Beets for pizza
The shreds of these
6. Beet shreds for soup
7. Beet shreds for Salad
8. Smoothies
Use those left over as smoothies. Blend them with other fruits and vegetables.
9. Bean chilli and Red beets
10. Moi Moi or steamed bean chilli with beet shreds
