Taste raw, boiled or steamed and oven-roasted or grilled beets side by side, and you’ll note their change from slightly bitter to semisweet and then richly caramelized. I take their flavor one step further and smoke them.
I’ve tried smoking raw beets, and it’s possible with time and a high temperature. If you’re hot-smoking ribs or a pork roast for a couple of hours at 300°F, you can smoke beets to one side. But food picks up smokiness better far below that temperature. So I first cook the beets until tender and then smoke them at or below 165°F for just 40 to 50 minutes. Oven-roasting or grilling balances their earthy smokiness better than steaming or boiling.
Precooking lets me smoke beets in my old Weber kettle grill with the same setup and at the same time as chili peppers or even cold-smoked cheese. Any of the setups I recommend for Home-Smoked Chili Peppers works: hardwood chips in a charcoal grill or a smoke tube in a charcoal or gas grill. You could also smoke cooked beets in a smoker or just briefly with a smoke gun.
Serve smoked beets immediately as a side dish, or store them for up to four days in an airtight refrigerated container. Add thin slices to pizza or burgers, puree and stir them into hummus or use them for filling salads or sandwiches. They also make delicious 30-minute pickles.
Roasted and Smoked Beets with Orange Vinaigrette
Serves 4
1 pound small to medium beets, scrubbed, with 1/2 inch of stem intact
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Homemade Triple Sec or orange juice
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Place the beets in a line down the center of a foil sheet, fold and pinch closed the top and ends and set the packet on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast at 425°F for 45 to 60 minutes, until easily pierced with a fork.
Unwrap the beets, plunge them into a large bowl of ice water and drain. Cut off the tops and roots, and gently rub or peel off the skins. Cut medium beets into chunks or slices; leave small ones whole if desired. Spread them in a single layer on a grill tray or copper grill mat.
Prepare your smoking setup. If using a charcoal or gas grill, get the smoke tube or hardwood chips smoldering, and then set the beet-loaded grill tray on the cooking grate. Cover the grill with its lid, adjusting the vent as needed to produce a thin smoke curl.
Check after 10 minutes and close the vent slightly or turn off the heat if the grill approaches 200°F. Smoke the beets for another 30 to 40 minutes, flipping halfway through and adding hardwood chips as needed to maintain steady smoke out the lid vent. Unload the beets onto a serving platter.
Whisk together the vinegar and orange liqueur or juice, and then pour it over the beets. Sprinkle with salt and pepper before serving.
Julie Laing is a Bigfork-based cookbook author and food blogger at TwiceAsTasty.com.