Easy Pickled Beets

These easy pickled beets are ready to eat in hours or will keep well chilled for weeks! Enjoy them straight from the jar or drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkle of black pepper, salad style. 

I have a confession to make and at the same time, a warning. I made these pickled beets one year ago, popped them into our laundry room refrigerator and promptly forgot about them. I think we can all agree that May 2020 was a bit fraught and I guess I had other things on my mind. 

When the Sunday FunDay theme of beets was announced, I suddenly thought, “Hey, I made pickled beets! Did I ever eat them?” The auxiliary refrigerator was searched and lo and behold, the quart jar of pickled beets turned up. 

The question remained, would they be edible? I am here to tell you that they were fabulous. I could not have told you that they were a year old! In fact, they tasted just like the ones I’ve made then eaten within a week or two. Did I just get lucky? Who knows? So here’s the warning: If you go off and leave yours in the fridge for more than a few weeks, your results may vary. 

Easy Pickled Beets

My top tip for making these pickled beets is to choose ones that about the size of your quart jar in the middle so that they fit fairly snugly. Smaller beets may need more vinegar to fill the space and ensure that the beet slices are completely covered. For the pickling to work well, the beets do have to be completely covered.

Ingredients for 1 quart jar of pickled beets

2 medium beets 

2/3 cup or 156ml white vinegar (or more to cover the beets, if needed)

3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Equipment

1 wide-mouthed quart jar or other tight sealing container

Method

In a large pot, cover the whole beets with water and cook until a knife slides in easily to the middle. Remove the beets from the pot and set aside until they are cool enough to handle. 

Use your fingers to press the peels off of the beets and cut any hard ends or bad spots off with a sharp knife. The peels will slide right off. If beet stains bother you, use gloves for this step 

Use the same knife to slice the beets into circles.

Stack the beet circles in the wide-mouthed quart jar, tucking the smaller ends down the side.

Heat the white vinegar with the salt until it reaches about 130°F or 54°C. 

Pour the vinegar carefully into the jar so it can seep slowly down filling up all the spaces between the beets. Check around the sides. If there are air bubbles, you can run a wooden skewer or chopstick down the inside of the jar, allowing the vinegar to flow down and the trapped air bubbles to escape up. 

When the jar is completely full, put the lid on tightly and refrigerate the pickled beets for at least several hours before serving. These will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator. 

Enjoy! 

As I mentioned before, this week's Sunday FunDay theme is beets, one of my favorite vegetables. Check out all the links below! Many thanks to our host, Mayuri of Mayuri's Jikoni.

• Beet Hummus with Goat Cheese from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Beet Salad with Goat Cheese from Making Miracles
• Beetroot Vada from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Easy Pickled Beets from Food Lust People Love
• Ginger Beetroot and Celery Juice from Cook with Renu
• Kubbah Selek - Semolina Dumpling and Beet Soup from Pandemonium Noshery
• Laal Sabzi / Beetroot Sabzi from Sneha's Recipe
• Roasted Beet Ricotta Gnocchi with Wilted Beet Greens from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Roasted Beet Salad from A Day in the Life on the Farm

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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