Level up your weeknight pasta with this easy and super flavorful roasted beet and shallot sauce pasta dish!
Barszcz-inspired Pasta
Beets are a staple in most Eastern European cultures and Poland is no exception. I grew up eating beets in a variety of ways, but my favorite has to be barszcz czerwony or borscht. A super flavorful (and a little time consuming) beet soup that’s usually eaten every Christmas Eve, barszcz czerwony has a really nice complex and deep flavor and is the inspiration behind this roasted beet and shallot sauce pasta. Unlike the soup, this pasta recipe uses roasted beets as opposed to boiled beets, which helps cut down on the prep work.
Just roast some beets in the oven, sauté some shallots or onion and blitz it it all up in a food processor or blender with a little cream cheese, s & p, and lemon juice. Toss it into a pan full of your favorite pasta and you’ve got a unique and flavorful vegeterian pasta dish with a stunningly deep pink color to boot!
Quantity and Storing the Roasted Beet Sauce
The recipe below makes about 2.5 -3 cups of sauce. You can make the sauce ahead of time and store it in a jar (preferably glass since the beets might stain plastic) to enjoy the next day. If you’re making roasted beet pasta just for two people and have leftover sauce, you can also use it later for lunch as a spread for a sandwich wrap or even as a dip.
Roasted Beet Sauce Pasta
Equipment
- 1 sheet tray for roasting beets
- 1 blender or food processor
Ingredients
- 1.25 pounds beets (550 g), peeled and roughly diced
- 3 tbsp olive oil, divided
- ¾ tsp salt, divided
- 1 tsp black pepper, divided
- ½ onion (or 2-3 shallots)
- 3 tbsp cream cheese (40 g)
- 2-3 tbsp juiced lemon (30-35g) more to taste
- 2 tsp toasted sesame seeds or pumpkin seeds for garnish optional
- 2 tbsp chopped parsley for garnish
- 6.5 oz dry pasta (ex. tagliatele pasta) (190-200g) or pasta of your choosing
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 410°. Line a sheet tray or roasting tray with foil.
- Lay out the peeled and diced beets on the tray and drizzle with 1 tbsp of the olive oil and about ¼ tsp of the salt and ¼ tsp of the black pepper. Place in oven and roast until fork tender, about 30 minutes.
- In the meantime, chop and dice the onion (or shallots) and sauté in a pan on medium heat with 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter. This will take about 10 minutes as we don't want to brown the onions but make them translucent and sweat them out a little. When done, set aside (we'll still use this pan).
- In a pot with boiling water, boil your favorite pasta according to package instructions. I like using pappardelle for this recipe but any pasta will do. Make sure to reserve about 1 cup of the pasta water to thin out the sauce at the end.
- Once beets are roasted, place in the bowl of a food processor blender along with the shallot/onions and add the cream cheese, salt and pepper, and half of the lemon juice. Blitz.
- Adjust to taste. You may need to add more salt or pepper.
- In the same pan that had the shallots, turn the heat to medium low and scoop in the pasta and the beet sauce and mix with tongs to fully combine. Add in about 1/2 to a cup of the reserved pasta water and mix. Additional salt and pepper may be needed.
- Serve with chopped parsley and/or sesame seeds or pumpkin seeds.