The Salad Bar: Winter Salad with Roasted Beets

It's time again for The Salad Bar, hosted by Wendy of The Weekend Gourmet. 

This month's theme was Lighten Up!  The idea is to post healthy salads that will help us "detox" after all of our holiday feasting.  This salad came from Cooking Light magazine. It called for goat cheese, but I left that out to make it even more "light".  While it's low in calories, it has a definite "comforting" winter feel to it with the roasted beets.  And the orange honey vinaigrette brightens it up perfectly.

Winter Salad with Roasted Beets

Ingredients:

2 medium beets 

Cooking spray

Spring mix lettuce

Spinach

2 tbsp frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp honey

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°.  Leave root and 1” stem on beets; scrub with a brush. Place beets on a foil-lined baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Lightly coat beets with cooking spray. Bake for 1 hour or until tender. Cool beets slightly. Trim off beet roots and stems; rub off skins. Cut beets into ½” thick wedges.

Place spring mix and spinach on two plates.  Top with roasted beets.

Combine oj concentrate, vinegar, oil, and honey and whisk well to combine.  Drizzle over salad and beets.

Makes 2 salads.

Nutrition Info Per Serving

Calories: 110

Fat: 8g

Sat. Fat: 1g

Carbs: 8g

Fiber: 2g

Protein: 2g

This salad would have been a little prettier if I had been able to find golden beets.  It would be great with a mix of regular and golden, but my grocery store didn't have the golden variety.  The original recipe called for using regular orange juice and cooking it down until it reduced to only 2 tbsp.  I thought it would just be easier to use concentrate.  I'm lazy like that.  I loved the dressing.  

This is a pretty simple salad, but I found it very satisfying.  I really like beets, but don't make them very often because I forget about them.  

So if you're still feeling a little bloated from last month, give this salad a try.  Also check out all the other great "light" salads below.  Come back next week to see salads made with "great grains".